We serve the Empire
by Droxx
Summary: The Star Destroyer Nemesis is ordered away to assist Lord Vader on an important mission and is caught up in a small rebellion. This is what happened from some of the crewmembers point of view. Set between ROTS and ANH.
1. 1-Beginning

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Star Wars universe. Disney does and they have the right to do whatever they want with this.**

* * *

PROLOG

THE JEDI TEMPLE – COUNCIL CHAMBER – 22BBY

Three persons were standing in the High Council Chamber. They were Jedi Masters Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Grand Master Yoda. The sun was setting at the distant Courscant horizon.  
"Do you believe what count Dooku said about Sidious controlling the senate? It doesn´t feel right." Obi-Wan said.  
"Joined the dark side Dooku has" answered Yoda and added a growl. "Lies, deceit, creating mistrust are his ways now."  
"Nevertheless," Master Windu said "i feel we should keep a closer eye on the senate."  
"I, agree." answered Yoda and the three Masters fell silent for a while, each one deep in his own thoughts.

THE JEDI TEMPLE – GREAT HALL

Jedi Master Tokasi Ben-Kai wandered slowly in the Jedi Temple deep in contemplation, hands behind his back. Every now and then he stopped and looked around as if it was the first time he really _saw_ the temple from the inside and he tried to memorize every detail of the ancient building. Finally, he stopped and once again looked around and up towards the ceiling high above his head. His eyes then looked at the large statues of ancient Jedi Masters and wandered along the line of pillars to finally stop at one of the many coloured windows who gave the hall its pleasant light. He sighed and walked to one of the many stone benches placed along the walls of the Great Hall. There he sat himself down to meditate.

After some time he felt a familiar presence in the Force and opened his eyes, only to stare into the face of a young woman.  
"Master Ben-Kai." she said, bowing apologetic. "Forgive me, I did not mean to disturb you." Tokasi smiled and answered while standing up.  
"You didn't. It was the will of the Force who brought you here at this very moment," and then he returned her courtesy and bowed to her adding "Jedi _Knight_ Jorani." The young woman blushed but the pride and joy in her smile could not be hidden.  
"Thank you Master." she said. "I came to thank you for your wise teachings under all those years as your Padawan learner. Without your patience i would never have passed the Trials."

Tokasi chuckled a bit and said "But of course you would have." Then he looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "But then, Master Yoda would not have given you such an approving growl." Jorani laughed at the memory. The green little Jedi Master had indeed nodded, grunted and wiggled his ears in a way clearly showing his appreciation of her performance.  
"Maly, my dear friend and former Padawan." he continued and put both his hands on her shoulders. "Jedi _Knight_ Maly Jorani."  
She smiled another smile, bursting with joy and pride over her new rank in the order.  
"I want you to know how very pleased i am over your progress. It has been a true honour having you as my Padawan learner and i know you will be a very valuable Jedi."  
He put his hands down to his sides and bowed deeply to her and said "You make me very proud."

She looked at him with a strange expression and for a moment he thought she would burst into tears right in front of him. But instead she hugged him in a rarely seen expression of emotions and said  
"Thank You Master. Thank You for everything." Then she released him, bowed quickly and turned to walk away.  
"Grasshopper!" He had called her by the nickname he had used when she was a little girl, a very long time ago it seemed to him. His voice and the name stopped her and she turned to face him again.  
"Yes Master?" He drew his breath when he in the young woman before him saw the little girl he accepted as Padawan that day so many years ago.

He collected himself quickly and continued.  
"Maly, i want you to know..." he could not continue.  
"Know what Master?" He looked her straight in the eyes and he was once again the Master teaching his student.  
"Take care of yourself Maly and don't let the horrors of war numb your senses and grumble your values." Then he shook his head. The Master was gone and the student as well. She was a Knight now. "May the Force be with You."  
She smiled and answered "And with You Master." Then she turned around and walked away.

He looked after her, wondering. _How will this war change you my young friend? So proud are you now and your ideals are carved in stone with the Force itself. Will the daily killing, the monotonous ending of other lives, the horrors, the suffering, will the war grind down your senses and make cruelties righteous for a higher purpose? Will you stumble on the very edge of the abyss, looking down to the dark side?  
_Jedi Master Tokasi Ben-Kai closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The time had come. He turned and walked towards the turbo lifts leading to the Council Camber._  
_

THE JEDI TEMPLE – COUNCIL CHAMBER

"Where is your apprentice?" Master Windu asked.  
"On his way to Naboo. Escorting senator Amidala home." Kenobi answered. "I have to admit" Kenobi continued "that without the clones it would not have been a victory."

"Victory?" Master Yoda blurted out. "Victory, you say?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Master Obi-Wan, not victory". He wrinkled his nose and as if talking to himself he continued. "The shroud of the dark side has fallen." Then he turned his eyes upward at his two friends and gave words to what they all were thinking. "Begun the clone war, has."

The three Jedi Masters stood silent, each one deep in his own thoughts when the sound of an approaching turbo lift brought all of them back to the here and now.  
Master Yoda smiled and said "A matter of great importance i believe, Master Ben-Kai with us, wish to speak." In the next moment, the turbo lift doors hissed open and Tokasi Ben-Kai entered the Council Chamber.  
"Masters." he said and bowed to all three of them.  
"Tokasi!" Obi-Wan answered and joy returned to his face as he continued. "Congratulations! Your Padawan performed excellent in the Trials."  
"Yes, very good indeed." Yoda commented. Tokasi bowed his head slightly.  
Thank you Masters. Jorani will be a valuable Jedi."

Then Windu asked "And now when you no longer have an apprentice, will you go through with your plans?" Tokasi nodded.  
"Yes Masters. I have come so i can leave the order."  
"You just can't be serious Tokasi." Obi-Wan said. "How can you leave us now when the republic is in need of every Jedi there is? And," he continues, pointing at Tokasi "You were just about to get a seat in the Council."  
Tokasi looked at the other and said "Obi-Wan, my old friend. We have already gone through this discussion." Obi-Wan sighed and put his arms out in resignation.  
"I know, i know. You don't approve the Jedi leading the Clone Troopers in battle." Tokasi nodded.  
"That is right. I don't believe it is the will of the Force for the Jedi to enter the battlefield on a scale that has not been seen since the Seventh Battle of Ruusan a thousand years ago."

"You can't mean that." Obi-Wan said doubtful. "The Jedi is the best military commanders in the whole republic!" Tokasi nodded again.  
"That is also right, Obi-Wan, but the Jedi are not militaries. A Jedi uses the Force only for defence. Never to attack."  
"But the republic _is_ under attack. We must defend democracy!" Obi-Wan said.  
"Again, you are right." Tokasi answered with patience. "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights have been the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic. But we can only protect the Republic, not fight a war for it."  
Obi-Wan was just about to make another argument when Tokasi interrupted "And so not to risk a schism within the order, or within the council as you just pointed out, i choose to leave the order entirely. But don't worry. I will not interfere."

"Unfortunate this is" Master Yoda said "but found something greater than the Force, master Ben-Kai has."  
"Hmpf." Obi-One made a face. "What could be more important than the republic or greater than the Force?"

"Love, Master Obi-Wan." Windu laughed. "Our dear friend has fallen himself neck deep in love! All this talk about believes and principals are just tricks and smokescreens so he can run away to some lady out there with his honour and dignity intact." The great Jedi Master Tokasi Ben-Kai laughed and blushed slightly.  
"I choose the path of no comments in this matter."

"Seriously." Windu continued after a while. "Does she know who or what you really are?" Ben-Kai shook his head.  
"No Master. She will never know."  
"Never, you say, mmh?" Yoda chuckled suddenly and pointed his stick at Ben-Kai. "Leave the order, a Jedi might. Leave the Force, a Jedi cannot. Show your destiny, it will, but more unexpected its ways." He lowered his stick and chuckled again. The three humans looked at each other. Master Yoda still had the ability to outwit them all.

"Shall we begin?" Windu then said, took out his lightsaber and ignited it. Ben-Kai then took out his own sword and with the Force he let it float in the air in front of him.  
Master Windu spoke first. "Who are you?" he asked in a voice that was all serious.  
"I am Tokasi Ben-Kai, master of the Jedi Order." Tokasi answered.  
"What is your request to the Jedi council and the Grand Master?" master Windu asked again.  
"I wish to leave the Jedi order and be released of my vows." answered Tokasi.  
"Then swear, by the Force itself that you will not reveal any knowledge you have about the order to anyone outside the order."  
"I swear." Tokasi answered.  
"Swear," Windu continued "by the Force itself, that you will not bear arms against any knight or master of this order."  
"I swear." Tokasi answered again.  
"And Swear, by the Force itself that you will not interfere in the concerns of this order."  
"I Swear." Tokasi answered a third time.  
"Then in front of the Grand Master and in the presence of a fellow member of the Jedi High Council as my witness, you are released from the vows of this order." And with a swift stroke with his blade he cut Tokasis floating lightsaber in two.  
"Your sword is broken." master Windu ended. "It is done."

Tokasi bowed deeply. "Thank You Masters." Master Windu took Tokasis hand and shook it well.  
"Take care, old friend."  
"I will do my best." Tokasi answered and embraced the other.  
"Anakin will be disappointed." master Kenobi said and gave Tokasi a big hug. "He really wants that rematch."  
"Well," Tokasi laughed. "Technically i only swore not to bear arms against knights and masters. Padawans on the other hand..." Obi-Wan laughed as well and said he would certainly not tell him that. Then Tokasi turned to Master Yoda.  
"Grand Master." Tokasi said and bowed deeply. "Thank you for everything." The short Jedi Master wiggled his ears and chuckled.  
"Thank me yet, you should not." and he pointed his stick at Tokasi like before. "Long is the path you have chosen. Not always easy to follow, you will find it."  
then he lowered his stick and looked down at the floor. "But happy, you will be."  
Tokasi bowed once more. "Farwell my friends, and may the Force be with you."  
"And with you." master Windu answered in return, bowing with master Kenobi.

CHAPTER 1

THE IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER NEMESIS - MAIN BRIDGE – 11BBY

The distinctive shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer along with a swarm of TIE fighters was the vision of the Galactic Empire. The mere sight of a Star Destroyer exiting from hyperspace could make the most ruthless pirate or seasoned veteran fighter tremble with fear and make them silently wish they never went against the interests of the Empire. It was a dreadful firepower assembled in the arrow shaped vessel and it could vaporize entire continents from orbit. With a skilful commander a single Star Destroyer could be a powerful force in an entire solar system. The pressure of its commanding officer was enormous and that was one of the reasons only the very best imperial officers finally ever made it to that post.

One of these chosen ones was Sitrod Natane, Captain of the Imperial-I class Star Destroyer Nemesis. He stood at the viewports of the main bridge, looking out to the green planet that dominated his view. He was a man in his upper forties, well-built and with snagged hair and well-trimmed beard going more to the silver tone now than to the dark colour of his youth. He had a perfect uniform with shiny boots and his hand rested on his back. Behind him the crew of the bridge handled their duties with low voices and without big gestures which was a sign of calm, drilled professionalism. This was a good crew and Captain Natane had worked hard to get it to its present level of performance.

Outside the transparisteel of the viewports, a squadron of TIE fighters passed on route to its patrol area. When it had cleared the Nemesis it broke up into three flights which each continued on to its dedicated area. Captain Natane sighed and could not help feeling just a slight envy to the pilots flying free out there, burning holes in space with their ion engines. He had himself never served as a fighter pilot. Instead, as a newly graduated Ensign, he had stepped into the bridge of a Venetor Class Star Destroyer, just when the Clone Wars broke out. It felt like ages ago but strangely he could still remember that very day as if it happened yesterday. Natane smiled slightly at the memory. Then, it had been an entirely different world compared with the one he now lived in. A different galaxy one might say. The war had changed everything. It was a horrible time but he confessed to himself it had taught him just about everything there was about commanding a capital ship in battle.

He was interrupted in his thoughts by the characteristic sound of an approaching protocol droid. _The day they figure out a way to shut those servo engines up I'll be the first to cheer_ he thought.  
"Excuse me Captain." the droid started. Natane turned around to see what his protocol droid V-2BE wanted and smiled when he saw what the silver plated 3PO droid was carrying. "Don´t worry tobee, you bring me just what i needed." He lifted the mug of caf from the small plate the droid was carrying, closed his eyes and smelled the hot drink inside. "Perfect, as always." he said, opened his eyes and smiled at the droid.  
"Thank you Captain." the droid replied. "I do my best to please you." Natane nodded and turned once again towards the stars and tobe trotted away. The Navy had tried to make him switch for a RA-7 droid instead but it had taken him a very long time to tech toobee how to produce caf decent enough to his own high set taste. And whith the RA-7 being known to be low intelligent so... tobee had stayed.

A military career had always been the obvious choice for young Sitrod. His father and grandfather before him had both been high ranking military officers and they had pulled some strings every now and then to put him in his present position. Commander of an Imperial Star Destroyer.  
"Don´t let them promote you away from that bridge now you hear?" his father had said when he came home and proudly had told him about his command.  
"Your finest time in the Navy start right now you know." he had continued with a strange look in his eyes. "There is nothing like commanding a Capital Warship. And there is no ship like a Star Destroyer." Natane had followed that advice perhaps a bit too close to the letter. Twice had he been offered a promotion and twice had he refused. First, he blamed his inexperience and they had bought that. The next time he said something about other officers deserving the rank more and finally they had let him off the hook.

He was again called back from his memories when he heard someone approaching from behind. The sound of the steps told him it was Commander Saritsa Soraan, the Nemesis First Officer.  
"Captain." Soraan saluted.  
"Commander." nodded Natane, but he did not turn around. Instead he still faced the stars. "What exciting reports do you have for me today?" he asked. He could not see her face, but he knew she smiled when she answered.  
"Main Core reactor status:_ normal_. Space Flight Force status:_ normal_. Crew status: _normal_. Main Artillery status: _normal_. Shall i continue?" Natane chuckled. "No, that will be fine Commander." Then he turned around and faced his first officer who also smiled when he concluded "All is under control and painfully normal." Commander Saritsa Soraan was a woman in her early thirties with her dark hair in a thick braid down her back. She was very intelligent and Natane was more than pleased with how she performed her duties. She was also very physically fit and the rumour was that she could even give the Stormtroopers a match when it came to unarmed combat. Soraan never talked about it but the Troopers did really respect her so there must be at least some small truth in it.

Captain Natane thought this was without a doubt the most meaningless mission they ever got involved with. Not meaningless, he had corrected himself, only poorly planned and with incompetent leadership. Admiral Mufid, in charge of this whole operation, wasn´t exactly a genius when it came to military operations. He had made his career on Coruscant and instead of actually dealing with the problem of raging pirates in the Sanraji system, which at least at some point had been the actual mission, the small fleet was drowning in forms that must be written in a correct fashion, reports, chain of command issues and a whole lot of other administrative nonsense.

"But how was the hull breach drill last night?" Natane asked. "Very well i would say." Soraan answered. "The Emergency Engineering Task Force was quickly on site and secured the affected sectors. This in spite of the surprises i had in store for them." The Captain nodded and Commander Soraan continued. "The reactor core and the main engines are holding within normal levels just as last week, and the week before. The Crew is on a shore leave shifting schedule to the planet below. Green squadron had its ranks filled after two losses when Green 3 and Green 6 exploded after a collision." Natane made a face at the memory of the collision. "Hmm, that wasn´t a very funny story. Flight Control still haven´t..."

The two highest ranked officers of the ship were interrupted by the Lieutenant in charge of the communications console, calling up to them from the crew pit. He looked up at them and said "Captain. You have an incoming transmission from Imperial Centre." Coruscant Captain Natane thought. He would never get used to that silly name. Commander Soraan looked at her Captain. "Imperial Centre? What could that be?" Captain Natane shrugged and said "Maybe they finally listened to your comments regarding the Navy's Cuisine?" They both chuckled and turned around to walk towards the Holo Projector in the Command Salon, just opposite the Security Foyer. When he arrived, Captain Natane gathered himself for a moment and then nodded to the Lieutenant who opened the channel. He held his gaze steady over the holo projector which at first only showed static noise but the moment after it stabilized and Commander Soraan drew a breath and stood up in attention.

In front of Captain Natane an oversized face towered showing none other than Emperor Palpatine himself. Captain Natane did not move and his face could have been carved in stone. "Your Majesty." Natane said, slightly bowing his head. "Captain Natane." the Emperor boomed with a loud voice. "You are to immediately take the Nemesis to the coordinates transmitted to you as we speak. There you will await Lord Vader and assist him in a mission of the outmost importance." "Understood." Natane answered. "Captain Natane." the Emperor said again with a voice filled with power. "Failure will not be tolerated." "Of course Your Majesty." Natane answered, again bowing his head ever so slightly. The moment after the Emperor was gone. Even though there had only been a projected image and not the Emperor himself, Commander Soraan had felt the very real threat in that last sentence and she saw now that she without knowing it had taken step back. Captain Natane on the other hand had not even as much as blinked and her respect for her Commanding Officer took a leap forward.

Natane stood still and seemed to gather his thoughts. Then he walked over to the Communications Console and asked "Lieutenant, have we received the coordinates?" The young officer nodded. "Yes Captain. It´s out in the Colonies region." The Captain nodded and stood silent again. Then he turned to his First Officer and said "Commander, start bringing back the crew according to emergency protocol yellow. Make sure our supplies are filled and all repairs are finished. We will depart in three standard hours."  
"Captain?" Commander Soraan hesitated. "But the Emperors order was to depart immediately?" Natane nodded, "That´s correct Commander, but it´s a journey of five or six days and you don´t want to go and assist Lord Vader with roughly 1/4 of the Crew on shore leave?" Soraan nodded. "Right Captain, i understand." "And," Natane continued "a mission of Lord Vader can mean just about anything and can take just as long, so i need us to be as prepared as we can be. So, I'll take three hours for preparations." "Yes Captain." Soraan answered again. "Right then." Natane sighed. "I have a talk with Admiral Mufid waiting. I´m sure he´ll be happy to get us out of his way."

Commander Soraan smiled at that last remark and gave her Captain a salute when he left the bridge. She looked after him for a moment. It was extremely rare for the Emperor to contact any of his commanding officers in person, something only a handful of commanders had the honour to experience and on those rare occasions the officers outranked Captain Natane by far. Again, her respect for the Captain rose a little higher. But then she collected herself and turned to the Communications Console. "Lieutenant. The crew is immediately to return to the Nemesis. Send out the order according to emergency protocol yellow." "Yes Commander." the Lieutenant answered and started to execute the order at once. Soraan then walked over to the Helm. "Yes Commander?" the officer said when she approached. "Plot a jump to the coordinates we just received. Let me know when we are ready." "Yes sir." the officer replied, saluted and got to work. Commander Soraan nodded pleased and picked up a datapad where she took out an action plan for to make sure there was nothing on the ship that needed refilling, replacing or repairing.


	2. 2-Game Trooper

SANRAJ III – CAPITAL CITY – VAPORIZER CLUB.

Crewman Shiri Tayen had not been this nervous in a very long time but she did not let any of her fears show. It could men disaster at this point. On the board in front of her laid markers in different shapes and in certain formations, each one with its own meaning and value in the game they were playing. It was similar to a game she was really good at back home but it soon showed to be very a different kind of game and she was far from as skilful as she first had thought. Actually she was in real trouble and only a few rounds from total collapse and bankruptcy.

Shiri and her friends on shore leave from the Nemesis had spent a whole day in the Capital City and when the time came to choose a nightclub they were to exhausted for any of the MegaClubs so they settled for one of the smaller instead. It was not a luxurious establishment. More of a waterhole well past its hey days but that was something they didn´t care about right then and there. As long as there was a place to sit, a bar and some music it was just fine so they had walked in.  
The place even had a small stage were a band was playing. A real band and not just droids or Holos playing. 'Satin Blaster' was the bands name and it had an uncomplicated old-school style that suited Shiri prefect. Their songs weren´t simple in any way but didn´t have any of the messy and overworked themes that were too common on the music arena these days. She would check them out on the HoloNet when she got around.

This was just the kind of place she would go to back home so in a way, she felt like home. The regulars were sitting at a table of their own and held a surprisingly low profile. The leader of the gang was a very large guy with some sort of metallic stuff in his face for decorations (or something). He had some tattoos on his arms that looked like, well, some tattoos, and his hair was long and messy.  
When the band took a break, Shiri had gotten up and walked towards the gambling tables. She used to be quite good at this and she wanted to try it out, for old times' sake. Big mistake.

Now it was only herself and a short man with a beard still in the game and she found herself trapped in a corner due to lousy strategy, a series of bad moves and too much bluffing. In the best of worlds she could be leaving this table with a huge debt to this man and in the worst of worlds, this world, well she didn´t want to think too much about that. Her naval career was for sure over in a very short time but that was the least of her problems.  
Unpaid gambling debts had been a first class ticket to slavery for thousands of years so she wouldn´t be the first to walk down that dark alley and simply disappear. The outcome of this game, or to be more precise, the depth of her complete failure, depended on the following two or three cycles. With a stupendous amount of luck she could prevent a total collapse and she would still have a theoretical chance to pay back, but if it went the other way it was all over.

On top of that small mental pressure, her ComLink had been beeping like crazy for a while but she had tried to ignore it as much as she could or it would mess with her concentration. It was probably her friends anyway, asking if she would follow them to the next club. The question at hand was instead which marker she would go for. The Generation 3 marker of any Level was the safe choice, but she could not afford to play it safe but should take a chance with the Generation 1 - Level Green marker instead.

The ComLink beeped again and she lost her concentration. Swearing she took up the little gadget and activated it. "Crewman Tayen here, now what´s so frellish important so you have to..." She was interrupted by a synthetic voice delivering a message. "This is a message to all personnel of the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis. Emergency protocol Yellow has been proclaimed and all personnel are ordered to return to duty. Please read the coordinates to your designated transport back to the ship following this message." Shiri sat quiet for a moment and just stared at the ComLink in her hand. Then she lifted her eyes to the man across the table. "Eh, I got to go."

The bearded man looked at her for a moment and said "Not a chance in Kessel girl. We haven´t finished our little game yet."  
Shiri looked down at the ComLink again as to confirm this really happened. She could see the coordinates blinking in the small display. Then she looked at the man sitting opposite her again. "You don't understand. An order like this cannot be ignored. I must return. You can keep what´s on the table, it´s yours."  
She stood up and turned to leave but then the bearded man sprang to life. He darted across the table and caught her in an iron grip by the arm.

"What the Frizz do you think you are doing? Do you think i was born yesterday and was just going to let you walk away with that fake call?"  
Shiri got scared and thought she wouldn´t make it back in time so she got angry and snapped back. "Fake? Are you completely Farkled? This is an emergency order from the Imperial Navy and it outranks our little game by light-years, got it?" The bearded man got all black in his eyes and hissed only centimetres from her face  
"I don't give a damn if every Stormtrooper laserbrain in the galaxy ordered something. We are going to finish this game even if it´s the last thing we´ll ever do. _Got it?_"

"Is there a problem citizen?" a synthetic voice suddenly said. The bearded man turned quickly and stared at the unlikely figure in front of him. Shiri didn´t need to look but immediately recognized the voice and snapped up in attention.  
Behind them stood namely a living Stormtrooper, looking at them through his black eye lenses. The bearded man still stared at the trooper with his mouth open but Shiris training had already kicked in and was now on full auto.  
"Sir, Crewman Tayen from the ISD Nemesis here sir! I have received orders to immediately return to active duty but, this man here is preventing me to return to the Nemesis, sir." The Stormtrooper didn´t move and it was difficult to say which of them he was looking at, or if he was even looking at all.

But then the bearded man suddenly woke up from his paralysis and started talking.  
"Listen Whitehat. I´m only two cycles from totally destroying this little shutta and then she will be my slave, got it?"  
He made a sweeping gesture over the gambling table and continued. "I mean, just look at this table right here. Can you see how the markers are laid up? All i need are two more cycles and she is finished. She will have no other choice but to become my property."  
Then he turned to Shiri and grinned. "Oh, the fun we will have you and i. You will scream, you will fight and and you will bleed, but in the end i will brake you and you will become an obedient piece of property."

Shiri got really scared now and the Stormtrooper didn´t seem too eager to help her either. She was after all only a Crewman and the bearded man had a point. Their game was carefully monitored by the club and completely legitimate so everything was in order.  
"So how about it Whitehat? If you just take another stroll around the place and come back later this table will be cleared, we will be gone and we can all just go on with our lives."  
The Stormtrooper turned his head slightly and asked "Do you mean this table citizen?" The bearded man nodded and opened his mouth to even more describe how close he was to winning. The Stormtrooper didn´t wait for the words to come but instead raised his TK-13287 blaster rifle and shot the table to pieces with a single blast. "I believe your game has been disrupted. Come Crewman, we must leave." And then he turned around and walked away with Shiri close at his tail.

The bearded man stared at the table as if he could not believe what his eyes saw. He opened his mouth and closed it. Opened it again and closed it when reality finally sank in. The game could be how legitimate as ever, no club owner in the galaxy would go up against a Stormtrooper over a thing like this. Why hadn´t he followed his own first rule of survival? _Don´t play games with the imps_.

"Sir," Shiri started when they had walked for half a minute. "Thank you. You really saved my life back there. I´m with Medical and Science Assistance on the Nemesis and if you ever need anything fixed, repaired or modified just ask for me, Shiri Tayen. Ok?"  
The Stormtrooper answered without turning his head. "I will remember. And Crewman?"  
"Yes sir?" she answered, looking up at the tall trooper and hurrying to keep up with his pace.  
"You would do best in turn to remember that you are a part of the Emperors Navy and you should act with the responsibility of that uniform you are wearing."  
"Yes sir, i will remember." she answered and lowered her eyes feeling rather ashamed of herself.  
When they were about to exit through the nightclub doors the Stormtrooper continued "Crewman, you should also remember that as a part of the Emperors Navy" then he suddenly stopped and turned towards her and she could barely see the mirrored distorted image of her face in the black eye lenses as he continued "you are _never_ alone."

It was impossible to see but Shiri was shure the face inside that helmet smiled at her. "Come on _Gambling Girl_, our transport is over here." he ended and they walked towards an open space where some four or five shuttles was waiting, taking on passengers.  
I´ll see you around." the trooper finally said and walked over to some other Stormtroopers nearby.  
"Thanks again!" she called out but he only shrugged casually without turning around. Only a few minutes later shiri was strapped in a seat and the shuttle slowly took off from the ground with its repulsorlifts roaring. She looked down through one of the viewports and looked thoughtfully down at the city below from which she almost had not returned.

Suddenly the shuttle made a sharp turn and accelerated. "Sorry about this" a female voice said over the intercom which Shiri thought it must be the pilot. "But we have another pickup to make."  
The shuttle manoeuvred between the buildings, never letting its speed drop even an instance until it suddenly came to a halt and hovered in mid-air, lowering its entry ramp . The other passengers looked down through the ramp and could see a speeder somehow stuck to the wall in front of them. It was like it was 'glued' to the side of the tall building who-knows-how-many levels above the ground and its two passengers just jumped over to the ramp.  
The two newly arrived laughed and walked straight up to the shuttle pilot, whom they obviously knew, and greeted her with more laughs so they must be pilots themselves. Only seconds after, Shiri could see the blinking blue-and-red lights of several police speeders arrive at the speeder on the wall. The two newly arrived waved at the police as the speeder picked up speed and Shiri guessed they just escaped the long arms of the local law enforcement. _Pilot egos_, she thought to herself and shook her head as the shuttle accelerated up into the atmosphere, leaving the capital behind.

SANRAJ III – CAPITAL CITY AT NIGHT – A SPEEDER

He had to admit the raw power of this speeder was something else. He could keep the chasing speeder behind them without any trouble at all. If he added a trick or two he had in mind he had practically already won this race through the city.  
Arien Madaan chuckled, grinned at the passenger in the seat beside him and asked "How are they doing?" and turned his eyes forward again. He had to make a quick manoeuvre to avoid colliding with...something that whooshed past them.  
The other person in the speeder watched the datapad in his lap and laughed "Just as bad as we told them they would, sir." Then he shook his head. "Bozos. I even told them we were fighter pilots. Did they think we made that up?"  
Madaan shrugged. "Why not? You know Roy, they probably have hoards of imperials on leave stampeding through here all the time, bragging around how bad they are. Every now and then there just might be one or two not so bad, making things up and..." he had to dive under a speeder showing up in front of them from nowhere. "..Well, i guess the locals just wanna show who´s boss in their own backyard. Know what i mean?"  
Roy nodded and was going to say something in return when his ComLinc woke up with an annoyingly loud sound.

"Now what?" he asked to nobody, got his ComLinc out and suddenly shouted "What the Frell?".  
Madaan looked at him. "What?" he asked and threw the speeder in an impossible turn. "This was our turn right?" he asked and Roy took his eyes from the ComLink and threw a glance forward. "Yes, this is the right way." but then he looked back at the device in his hand again and said "But, what the Frell?"  
Madaan quickly looked at him. "What? You look as if you have seen a ghost or something." Roy did not answer but pressed a button on the ComLinc and a synthetic voice was heard.

"This is a message to all personnel of the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis. Emergency protocol Yellow has been proclaimed and all personnel are ordered to return to duty. Please read the coordinates to your designated transport back to the ship following this message."  
They both sat quiet for a minute or so when Roy sighed. "Well, i guess that's the end of this race." He put the ComLinc away and swore again. "Frell. I was really looking forward pushing that overdone clown back under the rock he came from and steal those two girls from him."  
Madaan nodded but then got a more serious look on his face. "All right then. Let's finish this game, dump the speeder and find our transport home." He looked at Roy and continued. "Call the clowns back there and give them the happy news."

A few minutes later, Roy was still talking to their opponents in the speeder behind them.  
"No, comethead, it does not mean you have won. It means we haven´t lost." Roy shook his head and tried to explain once more. "Right, that sounds just great, but the situation is like this. We have been ordered to immediately...  
Roy was interrupted by a sudden siren and flashing lights behind their speeder. The police had finally heard about their little private race through the central city. "Listen moonbrain, we just got the local peacekeepers on our tail and it won't take them long to figure out what we are doing so i suggest you guys slowly change your course and slip away. Nice to know you but the game is over."  
He ended the conversation and looked over to Madaan.  
"I see, i see. This isn´t good." Madaan said and then he thought for a moment, totally ignoring the police sirens and the speaker ordering them to pull over.

"Ok, this is what we´ll do." he said after a minute or two. "You take a look if this thing has got horizontal parking capabilities. It´s a T-25 so it should have. Then you find us some shuttle transport alternatives in the area. Try to find a pilot we know that owes us."

Roy looked at him and said "Say what?". Madaan just smiled back. "I have an idea."  
Roy shook his head and strapped himself to the seat tightly. "Hm, this will be interesting." he said and started working on the datapad in his lap to find imperial shuttles in the area.  
"Ready?" Madaan asked and Roy held on to his datapad and nodded. "Ok, time to leave this orbit." he said and pushed the control stick hard forward-left while he at the same time pushed the throttle to max. The speeder threw itself in a steep dive and picked up speed very fast. He followed up the dive with some very sharp (and very close) turns and pushed the speeder to the limit of its capabilities without breaking up.

Roy continued tapping the datapad and then said "Ok, this thing sure has got the magnetiparc function all right." Madaan nodded.  
"Then we are in luck as well. Or, you are in luck, i´m just following along as a passenger here. Remember that for later." The speeder made an almost vertical climb and Roy held on hard to the datapad.

"Remember that girl Tabbie who piloted a transport you and i flew escort to, some, i don´t know, two-three months ago?"  
"Tabbie?" Madaan said and looked quickly at the now smiling Roy. "Are you kidding?" Roy could no longer control himself and laughed out loud. "No sir, i´m afraid not. She who you were supposed to fly escort to but your laser cannons, well, didn´t work. Sir." Madaan allowed himself to smile at the memory. "Well, maybe not one of my most glorious moments i admit." Roy calmed himself a bit and continued. "Well, this is our opportunity. She pilots a shuttle back to the Nemesis not so very far from here, but we need to hurry. She is due for departure in only five minutes." Madaan nodded. "Ok, that´s our way out. Frell, she is never going to let me forget this. Call her."

A few minutes later, Roy was still giggling and Madaan said to himself again "She is never going to let me forget this." Roy only shook his head i a theatrical way but didn´t say anything. "Stop that and get ready with the MagnetiParc already." Madaan said in attempt to sound angry but it didn´t work at all. The two friends just laughed at the whole situation. "Good to go boss, good to go." Roy said. "Now shake those losers off our tail." Madaan nodded and gently stroke the dashboard. "Hold together girl, this could hurt. A lot."

Suddenly, Madaan changed the way of flying and emerged in a series of that-should-be-impossible manoeuvres, leaving the police speeders, who until now had stayed close to them, hopelessly behind and avoiding to crash themselves. Madaan just continued his insane flying until Roy shouted "Ok, this is it!" and then looked back behind them. "All clear on your six." Madaan turned sharply into a narrow alley between the buildings, which in this speed made the walls stand very close. But this was a dead end and the wall ahead came rushing towards them. At the very end, he pulled the control stick towards him hand the speeder shot upwards. But it would never pull up in time and was not designed for this kind of manoeuvring at all but would in matter of second's crash into the vertical wall of the building. But just moments before it was too late, he slammed the engines to full reverse and pulled hard on the breaks. This resulted in the speeder almost coming to a dead stop and Madaan shouted "Hit it!"

Parked speeders had become somewhat of a problem in many of the galaxy's cities so some manufacturers added a magnetic parking function to their models that made it possible to park speeders on the durasteel walls of buildings. With some fiddling you could even park upside down. This way you could park even more speeders in an existing area without adding or modifying the buildings.  
Roy now activated their speeders MagnetiParc and it started to vibrate violently when the powerful magnets reached out its invisible claws. The speeder got a hold and slammed into the wall with a terrible crash. It got hit pretty bad but seemed like it would hold together. It slipped down a few meters and pulled parts of the facing along with it that fell down to the ground, before it finally stopped and was attached to the wall. Madaan then quickly cut the engines and put the speeder into parking mode.

He smiled at Roy and said "Nothing to it." "One of these days, sir, one of these days." Roy replied and started to disembark from the speeder who now stood parked in a 90 degree angle on the wall of a building, many levels up. But they barely made it out until a shuttle came out of nowhere and hovered just beside them with the entry ramp lowered. With a small jump they entered the shuttle which was full of different types of navy personnel, all heading back to the Nemesis.  
They walked straight to the cockpit and Madaan clapped the pilot on the shoulder. "Well hi there Tabbie, that´s what i call timing." The pilot shook her head and smiled. "That´s the second time i rescue your sorry behind Madaan. We really need to stop seeing each other like this."  
Then, as the shuttle turned upwards and picked up some speed, three police speeders halted at their abandoned vehicle on the wall and both Madaan and Roy waved cheerfully through the viewport.


	3. 3-Welcome aboard

THE NEMESIS – OFFICERS MEETING ROOM.

First officer Soraan waited for Captain Natane to arrive. The meeting room was filled with senior officers mumbling low with each other. Then the door hissed open and everybody snapped out of their chairs.  
"At ease." Captain Natane said and walked up to his seat. "Right. I suspect you all wonder what this is all about. We just recalled the crew from shore leave using emergency protocol yellow and immediately after, the Nemesis jumped into hyperspace."

Natane now had the complete attention from everyone in the room and he nodded to Commander Soraan to start the holoprojector. Immediately a holographic map of stars in the colonies region appeared with coordinates in yellow and a small red dot in the middle. "We have been ordered to immediately set course to these coordinates. There we will meet up with Lord Vader who is on an important mission, though its details are unknown to us. Our mission is to assist Lord Vader in every possible way." These were news that definitely took all the senior officers by complete surprise and the room was dead quiet. "Are there any questions?" Natane asked and looked out over his officers.

"Vader?" a voice said, unclear who it came from. "What could that mean?" "That we´re finished." another said.  
Captain Natane had expected the reputation of Lord Vader's 'aggressive leadership' would make the officers feel insecure and perhaps even afraid, and the comment did not come as a surprise. So he continued with a snort.  
"That´s just a bunch of rubbish and i don´t want any more talk of that kind. Do i make myself clear?"  
A compact silence confirmed the order was understood.

"How many of you have even seen Lord Vader in reality?" he continued. Three hesitating hands went up.  
"Well now?" he continued with a smile. "And yet you live?"  
That brought some of them to laugh a bit and the tension in the room was lifted a little but not completely.  
"Listen." he continued. "We are all officers in the imperial navy and Lord Vader is just about second in command of the armed forces only to the Emperor himself. The missions he commands in person usually are of the utter most importance so we will, to say the least, be where the action is. And so far things are very clear and very plain."

Then he smiled again. "But let us not pretend. The dark Lord has, to say the least, a unique personality and he is very good at..." he paused for a moment  
"clearing out the officer's core." That brought down more laughs and once again the tension was lifted among the present.  
"I have served under Lord Vader twice earlier so let me share some experiences that might be useful and i want you in turn to pass them along to the crew. Actually it´s very straightforward. Just do your duty. No more, no less. Don´t butter up to score some points for a fast promotion. He will kill you on the spot."

The room was very silent when Natane paused for a moment. "The last thing you will ever see is a red blade of pure energy cutting your head off or a black hand reaching out, squeezing your throat through the air. Don´t try to second guess him or try to figure out in advance what he wants from you. Just simply do what you are ordered to do. Lord Vader demands efficiency, loyalty and above all, results. He detests career hungry officers who try to play hero or sucking up for a fast promotion and thereby risking the mission." The officers looked uncertain at each other and Captain Natane continued.

"And one more thing. If you should talk directly to him, face to face so to speak, don´t be intimidated by his height for you will be looking up to him. Focus on a spot right between his eye lenses or your eyes will be all over that black helmet and your knees will get as week as on a freshly baked Ensign on his first day of duty." That brought some laughter in recognition and remembrance.  
"Just listen to what his voice is saying and things will go well." Natane nodded and moved on.

"Now I want you to go back to your people and inform the officers. I would prefer as soon as possible to prevent any rumours from flying around. Make sure the crew is well trained and prepared for whatever tasks might be at hand. All routines and procedures must be well known and there must be no hesitation how to perform ones duties. That goes especially for the officers. Trust me. You don't want to receive an order from Lord Vader, not knowing how to perform it. Then you will die." Then he nodded again and ended the meeting.  
"That will be all until we hear from Lord Vader. Wing Commander Edge and Colonel White remain; the rest of you are dismissed." The senior officers of the Nemesis stood up and left the room mumbling, leaving only three people.

"Well then gentlemen," Captain Natane started, facing the two identical Clone Commanders.  
"You command the two parts of the Nemesis that I guarantee will notice Lord Vader's presence the most. Under normal circumstances it is the 501st legion that follow the Emperors Enforcer and have done so since the very birth of the Empire. The risk of misunderstandings between Lord Vader and his troops are minimal due to the long period of active duty they've had together. But this time he don't have the 501st behind him, he's got us, which bring with it some...concerns. To misunderstand this commander could be lethal"

The two officers facing Natane exchanged a quick look and Natane turned to the commander of the TIE Fighter Wing.  
"Colonel Edge. Lord Vader is known to personally lead the fighters in battle so I want you to pick out a fighter right away and prepare to modify it for his size." Colonel Edge nodded.  
"And," Natane continued "I also want you to pick out two pilots to be his wingmen if he should require it." Colonel Edge nodded again. "Finally I can only recommend as much time in the simulators as possible for all pilots. Preferably standard attack tactics and commands rather than fancy flying.  
" Yes Captain." Colonel Edge said with a third nod.

"The same goes for you Edge," Natane continued now facing the Commander of the ships Stormtrooper Legion.  
"Lord Vader could very likely do the ordering to the trooper commanders himself, and they will then have to pass the planning along down the lines. So there must be no hesitations regarding receiving orders, strategies or tactics." White nodded.  
"It's also common for him to lead the ground troops in person so a review of standard assault procedures and tactics would be in place for you too." White nodded his face like stone.

Natane sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Look, it's not that I doubt your competence or your trooper's capabilities. I know you know how to do your job, have no doubt. But this time the pressure on your officers will be so much higher because Lord Vader gives a general order only once and then he expect it to be carried out without any further clarifications or explanations." Both his officers nodded.  
"Dismissed." Natane said and the two officers in front of him simultaneous stood up, saluted and left the room without a word.

The Captain sat alone in the room for a while, tapping his fingers on the table. He knew the ship would soon be filled with activity, expectations and even fear in some parts of the mighty warship when the character of their mission would be revealed to the crew.  
Personally he found Vader's leadership idiotic and almost childish. To kill commanders whenever something went wrong was counterproductive and obstructed the officers to think creative and take initiative. How would they ever learn from their mistakes end evolve?

But he would be very careful and not even think such things in the presence of the Dark Lord. On the contrary, he would do everything he could to make his mind blank and only think of the Empire, his duty and the glory of the Emperor.  
He would probably be alright himself but his officers were a completely different matter, especially the non-clones aboard. They would most likely wet their pants the moment the black shape ordered something. He shook his head and rose from the chair. No use thinking if such things now. He had prepared his officers as best he could and he now had a ship to make ready.

THE NEMESIS - DOCKING BAY 12

Lieutenant Commander Arien Madaan stepped out on the gantry, high above the deck of hangar bay 12. Two rows of TIE Fighters hung suspended below him. He marched on to the fighter designated to him for this mission.  
"Sir." the waiting flight engineer saluted when he approached. "Pre-start procedures are completed and all internal tests came out green." he said, still saluting. "The engines initial warm up is also completed and she is ready for pre-flight, sir."  
Madaan returned the salute saying "Thank you Sergeant. I know she will be just as fine as always when you hand them over to us." and he reached forward and shook the sergeants hand.  
"Thank you sir." The flight engineer answered smiling. "And i know she will need just as much maintenance as they always do when you return them to us."

Madaan chuckled at their informal formalities. It was a gesture of respect that most of the pilots showed towards the flight engineers. Their part in the Fighter Wing was perhaps not the most glamorous but sure not the least important. Without them, the entire flying circus would grind to a sudden halt.  
Then Madaan turned around and took a step out from the gantry and down on the hull of the small fighter.

With experienced hands he lowered himself down into the cockpit with a series of moves that required a great deal of skill. A common rookie-blunder was to get too close to the edge in front of you, ripping the entire life-support system off and knocking the helmet in your face. But you only made that mistake once. Fractures on the nose were called a 'rookie-snout' and every pilot in the navy knew what had happened.

When Madaan was seated, he punched in his ID number. Stormtroopers excluded, TIE Pilots were the only troopers holding ID Numbers. It was intended to hammer in the concept of placing mission and Empire above oneself back in the days when non-clones began to enter the imperial fighters.  
A good idea in itself but ID numbers soon proved to be almost impossible to use in reality. The non-clone pilots just flew a whole lot better using "real" names and call signs. But, the number every pilot was given was still used and Madaan watched as his number was verified. It came out green and it showed he was the right pilot in the right fighter at the right time. Other than for verification procedures the ID number was almost only used for ceremonial procedures. If you were called with your ID number you had either a promotion waiting (not very likely) or you were in serious trouble (more likely).

Then he attached the small cable connecting the ships systems to his helmet. The TIE Pilots helmet was a part of the cockpit itself and it would be very difficult to fly without it. Difficult, but not impossible, as some pilots had gotten first-hand experience in as the link sometimes was cut off. But that was very rare and Madaans view was filled with information from the helmets Heads Up Display, or HUD. Only now he gave the thumbs up to the flight engineer looking down at him from the hatch. The flight engineer nodded, saluted again, turned a switch and the hatch closed itself and sealed the cockpit completely with a muffled 'thud'.

Madaan flipped a few switches, watching as the diagnostic reports came back all green. All systems good to go.  
"Fighter Command, this is Blue Leader reporting in for communications check, over." he called.  
"Acknowledged Blue Lead." a voice answered over the helmets communications. "Estimated time to normal space 12 minutes, over."  
"Copy that, Blue Lead out." Madaan ended.

He switched ComLink channel to the one designated for their patrol mission and called out.  
"Blue squadron, this is Blue Leader. We are approximately 12 minutes to normal space. Report in."  
"Blue Lead this is Blue 2 standing by." a voice answered. "Blue 3 standing by." another answered and quickly they all had reported in. And then it was just to wait.

Most of the time spent in the imperial armed forces was invested into waiting, no matter in which part of it you served. But Madaan did not complain. He was just where he wanted to be. He was the Commander of the Blue TIE Fighter squadron on the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis and he loved his job. It was more than just a job. It was a way of life, a dream come true, what he always wanted to do since he was just a kid.

He had applied to the Imperial Navy Academy just as so many other kids around the galaxy had done when the empire delicately began to allow non-clones into the ranks and he had quickly proved he had the right stuff for a fighter pilot. After the transfer to a Section for Pilot Training he had known this was where he truly belonged. He loved the Navy with its rules, traditions and way of life. In the beginning he and his natural born colleagues had died like flies in their fighters, but he had somehow survived and now, when the training had been changed completely, the non-clones did a lot better. Still, the clone pilot's only shook their heads at them and Madaan knew he would never be as good as them, but he had accepted it a long time ago.

TIE pilots were the best of the best of what the academy could produce but they were nothing compared to the clone pilots who were completely superior. Their knowledge and experience was...immense, and then some. Senior clone-pilots sometimes held classes with Madaan and his colleagues and once you´ve gotten used to their slightly arrogant manner (frell, they were the best after all and they sure knew it) you had a never ending source of information and know-how at your disposal.

Early on in his career, Madaan had been put in some all-clone squadrons and it was the worst and the best time he had ever experienced. It had been horrible and he was time and time again reminded of how he wasn´t good enough or could never uphold even nearly the same level of skill as the rest of them. Nobody said anything of course. On the contrary, the all encouraged him and helped him in every possible way, and he evolved as a pilot in ways he didn´t even thought possible. But inside of him, he knew he was the weakest link and the one everyone else had to help out. Frell! They even looked the same. A whole squadron of identical faces and then him, the one who didn´t fit in. Like a frellish mascot or something, for luck.

Then one day his squadron leader had taken him aside and told him he was good but they could not keep him in the squadron any longer. He would be transferred to a squadron only with non-clones. Madaan had held his face and nodded but inside him his world fell apart. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to him. He knew he wasn´t good enough and could not keep up with the rest and was only holding them back. But it still hurt. It hurt so incredible much. So, the last day, the whole squadron was lined up, 11 identical faces and him, the abnormal one. Again, the one who didn´t fit in.  
The squadron leader held a short speech saying he had done what he could but there just was no way to keep him any longer and wished him the best of luck at his new post. Madaan almost could not keep his tears away but thanked them for this time and everything they had taught him. He also apologized if he had shamed them.

"Shamed us?" the squadron leader had interrupted. "What do you mean, 'shamed us'?" Madaan blinked, fighting the tears back and despite the lump in his throat he said "For not being good enough, for always falling behind, for always needing help in battle, for never learning your designation numbers and..."  
"Son." the squadron leader interrupted again, putting a hand on Madaans shoulder. "Is that what you think this is? That i am throwing you out because i don´t want you flying with us?" He put his other hand on Madaans other shoulder, looking straight into his eyes, making Madaan feel like a small boy again and said "Haven´t anyone talked to you about this?" Madaan only shook his head and his commander bit his jaws together and for a moment got something furious in his eyes. But it quickly went away and he continued.  
"Son, they are giving you your own command." When he saw that Madaan still didn´t understand he said. "You are being promoted to Squadron Leader of the Knife Squadron aboard the Spearhead." Madaan just stared at him.  
"Me?" he said. "Squadron Leader? But i thought..." His, now ex Squadron Leader interrupted him again and shouted "Sword Squadron, teeen-hut!" The whole squadron immediately snapped to attention.  
"We salute you." the commander continued and lifted his hand to his eyebrow before he added "Brother."

Madaan was pulled back to reality when the ComLink in his helmet crackled to life.  
"1 minute to normal space." He called his fighters again.  
"Ok Blues, this is it. Let´s make this one by the book now, Blue Lead out." Seconds that felt like minutes passed and then he felt how the gigantic warship underwent a faint vibration indicating they had come out of hyperspace. He braced for the jolt as the launch tractor grabbed his fighter and flung the tiny craft away from Hangar Bay 12 and out into the large Secondary Launch Bay.

Then, finally, Madaan could take control of the small spaceship, pushed the twin ion engines behind him to full and the fighter shot away from the hull of the Nemesis. The other fighters quickly formed up behind him and he called out "Blue Squadron, you all know your designated patrol vectors. Fan out." He watched on his computer screen how the squadron split up and flew away in different courses. "Ok, Roy, let´s go." he called to his wingman, laying in standard formation at his rear right. Then he turned the control yoke and swung his ship in a wide arch away from the Nemesis.

What nobody told you at the academy was that most of the glamorous life as a fighter pilot is spent in a TIE cockpit on dull patrol duty, just like this one. Madaan had flown hundreds, or was it thousands now, 'missions' like this one. Back and forth along designated flight vectors and patrol boundaries or as an escort to other ships. The hard part was to stay awake and alert hour after hour because suddenly the scene could change and lasers be fired. To prevent that he had introduced his own irregular communication checks to keep the squadron as alert as possible. It was common for inexperienced pilots to...

Suddenly a ship just jumped out of hyperspace in his patrol area. "Wonderful." he grunted to himself before switching on his ComLink.  
"Blue 8, unidentified vessel at Five-three, Mark 1. Stay on my wing."  
"Copy Lead." came the reply from his wingman. Madaan threw his fighter in a sharp turn, putting them on a course towards a Lambda Class Shuttle that wasn´t there only seconds ago. The shuttle held its course for a moment but then suddenly turned dead onto the Nemesis. _Uh-oh_, madaan thought.  
"Blue 8, Keep calm and stand by." he called his wingman.

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE – CREW PIT.

"Lambda Class Shuttle, we have you on our screen now, please identify." Commander Soraan was standing on the Command Walkway, looking down at the communications station in the Crew Pit and the young lieutenant at the console looked up on her nervously.  
"Again." she said calmly. The bridge was strangely quiet and everyone could hear her words.  
"Lambda Class Shuttle, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis. You are flying in restricted space. Please identify." the lieutenant called again over the ComLink. "Call the fighters and have them move in on the shuttle." Soraan said to the officer standing at Starfighter Operations Console. "Yes sir." the officer answered and began executing the order. Then she turned to the young officer below her again.  
"Phase 2, lieutenant." The communications officer nodded and began working the controls.  
"Lambda Class Shuttle, this is an imperial warship. You are flying in restricted space. Identify yourself or you will be assumed hostile and fired upon."  
Soraan made a sign with her head to the Defence and Weapons stations who nodded back. And the bridge was dead quiet again.

SPACE – TIE FIGHTER - BLUE LEADER.

Just my luck, Madaan thought when he received the order from Starfighter Command and flipped the ComLink switch.  
"Blue 8 this is Blue Lead. Stay on my wing and watch our back for other hostiles, over."  
"Copy Lead." Roy answered. Was that nervousness he heard in the speakers or was it just static?  
Madaan moved his fighter and placed himself right behind the shuttle, locking the sights on the target. His laser cannons were already fully charged and it was now just a matter of waiting. A Lambda Class Shuttle could, in the hands of a skilful pilot, act as a fighter on its own. But against a TIE Fighter already placed in the kill zone most flying would be in vain.

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE – CREW PIT.

"This is the shuttle of Lord Vader." An irritated voice was heard from the speakers of Communications station. "Stop this nonsense at once Nemesis and prepare for our arrival." Commander Soraan could hear the whole bridge letting out their breaths in relieve when she felt a light tap on her shoulder.  
She turned her head and met the eyes of Captain Natane, shaking his head ever so slightly. For a moment, her otherwise crystal clear thoughts were in total confusion but then her training kicked in and she turned once again to the communications station.  
"Again, lieutenant. Phase 3." The young officer gulped and said "But sir, it´s Lord Vader and..."  
"Lieutenant!" Commander Soraan snapped with a sharp tone, making everyone jump. The young lieutenant had sweat on his forehead and gulped again but turned to his station and did his duty.  
"Lambda Class shuttle, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis. You have failed to identify yourself. You have 10 seconds to transmit a correct clearance code or we will open fire. There will be no second warning. Nemesis out." Soraan turned to the Weapons Station on the other side of the Crew Pit and the officer nodded, confirming the artillery was ready.

SPACE – TIE FIGHTER – BLUE LEADER

_Frell!_ 10, 9... "Blue 8, this is Lead. How´s our backyard, over?" ...8... Madaan did not see anything on his tactical display but you never knew.  
"All clear and no one´s there Lead." Ray answered. All nervousness, real or imagined was gone now and instead replaced by a cold resolution...6, 5...

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE – CREW PIT.

...4..."Transmission commencing" was suddenly heard from the Communications Station below. Commander Soraan let her breath go only now realising she had held it. "The code checks out sir!" the Communications Officer gasped, who also had put his breathing on hold. "It checks out."  
Soraan nodded and said "Carry on."

SPACE – TIE FIGHTER – BLUE LEADER

"Blue Lead this is the Nemesis. Stand down! I repeat, stand down!" a high-pitched voice yelled over the ComLink.  
"Copy that Nemesis, standing down." Madaan answered and immediately broke the target lock on the shuttle.  
"Blue 8, breaking left." he called and turned away from the shuttle.

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE – CREW PIT.

"ST322 you are clear to proceed." the pale lieutenant at the Communications Station called to the shuttle.  
"We are starting our approach." came the answer but by then Commander Soraan had already turned to Captain Natane.  
"Captain, did we just almost open fire on Lord Vader's shuttle?"  
Natane raised one eyebrow and answered "No Commander. We only followed Imperial Navy protocol."  
Soraan just stared at him for a moment and then she suddenly realized. "By the book Captain?"  
Natane nodded. "By the book Commander." Then he smiled. "Come, we have the Emperors Enforcer to welcome."

THE NEMESIS – HANGAR BAY 25

A short time later they stood in Hangar Bay 25, together with an honour guard, which was far too small if you asked Soraan, consisting of Stormtroopers and Officers, and when watching the Lambda shuttle slowly being lowered by the landing beam she asked the Captain "So it was only a test?"  
Natane answered without his eyes leaving the shuttle "Like I said, we do our duty. No more, no less."  
Soraan looked at her Captain with a little bit more respect than before. _He knew_, she thought. _He knew all along something like this would happen._ In spite of all the drills they had made and all the talk they had heard, none of them saw a thing like this coming. Then she shook her head and thought _We are so farkled._

The shuttle had been lowered on the right side of the large Hangar Bay 25. In front of them two lines of Officers were positioned with their faces turned to their colleagues in front of them. Behind the lines of officers, to the right from the shuttle, two rows of Stormtroopers were placed in their shining white armour.  
Before the shuttle had even touched the ground, Captain Natane stepped forward and began his march to the Shuttles entry ramp. His face was like carved in stone and just as the ramp hissed and started to open in a cloud of steam he stopped and put his hands on his back.

Just as he had predicted, Lord Vader had begun walking down the ramp before it was even lowered to the deck. Out of the clouds of steam the giant black shape appeared and his breathing device hissed with its mechanical sound, free of any indication of human characteristics.  
"Lord Vader." Captain Natane started and turned to follow Vader who continued his resolute walk. "Welcome aboard the Nemesis. How may we serve?"  
"I see you have your ship in excellent condition captain." the Dark Lord answered. "That is good. Set your course to the Warasolis system and take us there immediately. Then gather your senior officers for a briefing."  
"Yes my Lord." Natane answered.  
"And i will require one of your TIE Fighters to be modified according to my personal specifications."  
Natane nodded. "As you wish my Lord. I will send an engineering team to you at once."  
Commander Soraan closed her eyes and shook her head again, smiling this time. _He had seen that coming as well_ she thought.

THE NEMESIS - OFFICERS MEETINGROOM

Lord Vader held his tactical briefing for the Senior Officers in the main conference room behind the bridge. The mission was not far off from Captain Natanes own guessing. The time factor was a key issue. That much he got from his little talk with the Emperor. As far as he could recall the Emperor had never before contacted a minor commanding officer in person so the mission must be of the highest importance. They had instantly left for their rendezvous with Vader, picked up the dark Lord and immediately set off to the Warasolis system so they were doubtless on a hunt for somebody, or something. But the prey of the hunt came as a total surprise.

"The prime objective of this mission is to capture and destroy the traitor and Jedi Knight Jorani." Lord Vader said. The female Jedi had somehow managed to slip through Vader's grip before on more than one occasion and Vader had made it very clear that the Jedi was not to be touched.  
"The Jedi is mine." he said and there were no doubt what so ever what he meant. The role of the Nemesis was simply to make sure the Jedi was caught so Lord Vader could finish her off. No problem.  
The Jedi Jorani had fled to Warasolis only a week earlier so there was no risk of any large scale uprising waiting for them. Quite the contrary actually. Warasolis was a friendly planet in the imperial family and the authorities would probably assist them in their search. So, all in all, they were in for a simple man hunt. Sounds simple enough but with a Jedi in the game you never knew just what might happen.

"Once we arrive on Warasolis" Vader continued "I want you to work together with the local authorities in setting up a patrol grid around the planet. I don´t want anything to slip through our net this time. Nemesis will coordinate all spaceflight in and out of the planet with the Warasoli Space Flight Control Center, located on the planet's surface here" a red dot lit up on the planet hologram. "and on two space stations placed in high orbit." two new dots lit up in orbit around the planet. "Warasolis don´t have a planetary shield or any regular military forces." Vader went on "But they do have the usual set up of security forces patrolling their space in small fighters and some older frigates to support them."

When Vader had finished his briefing and marched down to the hangar bays to instruct the engineers how he wished his TIE fighter to be modified, the next part of the briefing started. Now, the Senior Officers of the Nemesis in detail planned the different steps and strategies of the plan and what needed to be prepared. Such a detail was for instance to split the reconnaissance squadron, or White Squadron, and put a TIE/-rc in each and every one of the other squadrons since the patrol area would be quite large and difficult to cover. Two hours later they were finished and a battle plan was written and sent to the rest of the ship. Everyone was to know what to do, when and how. Captain Natane was proud of his crew who had shown proof of both professionalism and efficiency. They had also been quite observant in following Naval procedures.

When the Captain returned to the bridge, Vader was standing by the front viewports with his hands behind his back, facing the passing inferno of hyperspace light. He waved at tobee and made a discrete gesture of drinking a cup of caf. The droid immediately understood and trotted away.  
Commander Soraan approached the Captain when she saw him and Natane asked if Vader had been standing there for long.  
"Almost 45 minutes." the answer came, and then "He just stand there. Quiet. Not moving." The droid arrived and Natane took the cup offered to him. "Thanks tobee." Then he turned to his First Officer. "Just leave him alone. Run the ship as usual but don't pretend he isn't there. He very much is, and he hears every word we say."

THE NEMESIS – TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT – DROID WORKSHOP

_'Vader', who cares anyway?_ Crewman Shiri Tayen thought when the work shift briefing was over. She certainly did not. She was standing on the lowest step of the lowest ladder in the imperial hierarchy. And he, if he even was a he, had long ago climbed up and left all the ladders behind him. He was second only to the Emperor himself or something. Shiri would probably not even know when he came aboard or when he left for that matter.

She was a Crewman from Medical and Science Assistance, Android Department, the lowest of the low. She was part of the invisible crew that didn´t really exist and was not a part of the 'real' crew of a battleship. But she did not care about all that either. She only had difficulties with some officers from the core worlds with their pompous egos. The ones who simply saw right through her and pretended she wasn´t even there were ok. That was the story of her life. They knew she had a function to fill and let her do her job as long as she kept out of their way. Fine.

But those who bragged on about their precious 'Acaaaademy' or how much better some core world was, they were the ones she just couldn´t get along with. She had never made it to the Academy. Not with her background from a poor family on some backwater planet. But, she had undergone the same intensive training and education as all the other recruits did at one of the many Navy Recruit Training facilities around the galaxy. Her ability to understand technical issues quickly sorted her out and she was put in specialist training which she actually got through. Or, any moron who could read a manual could pull it off. But it soon was very clear that far from all the morons could do just that. That wasn´t any problems for Shiri. Quite the opposite.

She had grown up in her parents repair shop where they repaired things for customers who could not afford to buy new ones, or sometimes not even in second or third hand. It was mostly droids they repaired, calibrated or upgraded with various modules and primeware. They erased memories, modified owner data removed or installed restraining bolts or did whatever needed to be done. They never asked any questions or kept any real records. Only a fake one for the controls from the authorities. That was why the customers kept coming and Shiri learned as a little girl how droids worked and she developed an ability to fix things. 'Fixie' was what they used to call her.

Anyway, she never quite understood how proud her parents were when she was accepted to join the Navy. They realised she had gotten a chance to a far better future than they ever could dream of. It was only later she knew how they felt and how much they had sacrificed for her to make it. Even her friends had looked up to her, but they would never say so of course. She had been given a ticket away from the bottomless pit of boredom and dead ends they called life. Shiri had passed her technical training with great results and droids had become her focus. She had wanted to go into cybernetics but for that to happen you needed to graduate as a Science Officer from the Academy and, well, that just wasn´t possible for her.

The two areas were the same if you asked her, but no one ever did of course. The same principals but where one of them was attached to a machine and the other in living tissue. The 'Medical' part of Medical and Science Assistance meant to give maintenance to cybernetic limbs that needed repairs or adjustment before being returned to the Medics again. And with all those thousands of Stormtroopers around there were always things to do. More than 40% of all Stormtroopers had some form of cybernetic limb put in. Everything from a finger to arms and legs. It was a dull, sometimes bloody, and an overall disliked business which the 'real' engineers didn´t want anything to do with. They wanted much more to pursue R & D or some other academic witchcraft. The actual 'doing' they gladly left to the likes of Crewman Tayen.

But Crewman Tayen didn´t mind at all, quite the other way around actually. It gave her an opportunity to test different types of cybernetics and she had implemented some of her own modifications and adjustments. It was all done in secret of course. It was strictly forbidden and if she got caught it was probably a one way ticket through the airlock. But none of her 'clients' as she preferred to think about them, had rated on her or even complained. On the contrary, many could swear their cybernetics felt a little bit more 'natural' after she had been allowed to 'try something out'. But, as said, it was strictly prohibited and she had to conduct her tests in secret. That meant late nights in the workshop when no one else was around.

Shiri, or Crewman Tayen as was her military name, liked the Navy. It had a rather simple order where everyone knew their place and had a function to fill even though it was insignificant like in her own case. Stated routines, food in her belly, a bed to sleep in and clothes on her body. She really didn´t have anything to complain about. That was why she did not care at all if the most notorious of the imperial Commanders where aboard the Nemesis and took them all out for some kind of Jedi hunt. It was not going to affect her anyway. Nothing of what the high Commanders with all their cylinders and coloured dots pinned to their chests did would mean anything to her. Droids needed to be repaired anyway.

She walked back to her workbench where an R4 astromech droid waited with a bunch of cables attached to it. She sighed and punched some buttons to start her simulation once more. It didn´t work this time either and it bothered her.  
"Tayen!" a voice suddenly called. "Yes sir!" she answered with a reflex and stood up, turned to her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Parthalan.  
"Drop that R4. You just got a protocol droid in hangar bay 3 with a higher priority."  
"Yes sir, i´m on my way." She answered and punched in a series of commands on her datapad. She waited for several seconds to make sure the right sub-routine would start at the precise right time.  
"Today, Tayen!" Lieutenant Parthalan called impatiently.  
"Yes sir! Right away sir!" Shiri answered again and saw her scheduled run get a ready status.

Later, during the ships nightshift, Shiri came back to the Workshop. Under the 'night' on board the Nemesis, the activity was on a much lower intensity and some of the not-so-very-critical operations were even shut down completely. The Droid Assistance Workshop was one of them and it was then Shiri could work with her secret cybernetics projects. She sat down by her workbench and pulled out a box looking like all the other boxes around her. She unlocked it and took out a whole cybernetic arm which she sat down on the bench surface.

Quickly she attached a number of wires and ran a few tests which did not give her the results she wanted. She stared at it for a moment but no flash of enlightenment came to her. Ok, she thought, do it again, do it right. She pulled out a tool and put its narrow tip to a measurement point. That made her datapad come to life and it began writing letters and diagrams very fast. She moved her tool to another point and watched the datapad again. Yes, that was also correct she thought. So why does this one flip out completely? The datapad began writing letters and drawing diagrams even faster this time and it was impossible to read all that came out on the screen. "Yes-yes, i know!" she said out loud and threw the tool down on the bench. Values like these are just not supposed to appear on a point like this! In particular when the other two show something completely different. It was something very wrong with this entire picture. She sighed and stood up. It was just as good to sneak out and grab a large cup of caf. This looked to be a long night.

Shiri sat up with a jerk. Druk! She had fallen asleep again. Quickly she looked at the time on her ComLink but there was no hurry. She was still off-duty and no one was missing her. All the lights in the workshop was off since no one was actually allowed to be here right now, but on the other hand she had 'manipulated' the security level here with a small sub-routine deep in the security system that looked completely innocent when it was automatically activated.  
But the cameras overlooking the Workshop were actually rigged to show a recording she had made another night and she had turned off or modified some other things as well. It was the only way for her to secretly work on her 'projects' without anyone knowing what she was up to. But now it was time to save the test results, put her things away, restore the security to its normal level and catch a couple of hours sleep before she was back on duty. She stood up and tapped her datapad so she could...That was when the workshop doors slid open with a hiss. Instinctively she ducked under a workbench. Who was coming? She felt her heartbeat race like mad. This was strictly forbidden, but she had a backup story to pull. Forgot to charge the powerpac of the droid she fixed yesterday, or something like that.

"This way Lord Vader." she heard the voice of Lieutenant Parthalan say and the sound of footsteps was heard in the otherwise silent workshop.  
"Here is our workshop for droids and cybernetics and you will find all the tools you..."  
Then suddenly the steps stopped and it all went quiet. Shiris heart beat like the sound of TIE Bombers dropping their payload. She could hear a strange 'snap-hiss' sound followed by a low humming sound and a faint red glow could be seen on the wall.  
"We are not alone Lieutenant." Vader's synthetic voice filled the entire room and she could physically feel his glance sweeping through the room, looking straight through any objects and then stare right at her. It felt like his eyes looked straight in to her head and she felt like a frightened little child, standing all alone in a corner of an empty galaxy while Vader turned her mind inside out. And then, he was gone.

"You know i can see you." he said. His voice filled the entire room again and Shiri was now scared for her life and close to panic. She slowly stood up and the scene she saw almost made her heart stop. Lieutenant Parthalan stood with his sidearm pointing at her. Some Stormtroopers took position in the rear and they too had their sights locked on her. But they were nothing compared to the Dark Lord himself. The controls on his breastplate glowed in the dark and together with the monotonous sound of his breathing they enhanced the feeling of non-human. In his right hand he held a short metal cylinder from which a beam of red plasma or some other kind of energy arose and in the red glow Vader looked like something picked out from a nightmare.

Shiris eyes almost popped out when she saw what he was holding. It was a weapon. She had heard of it when she was a little girl. Something only the Jedi were known to use. But to actually see one in reality was something she never dreamed of.  
"A lightsabre!" she blurted out. "The most advanced weapon in the galaxy and at the same time the most simple and pure of all."  
Vader then asked "You have seen one before?"  
"No." Shiri answered. "Or, only in pictures. But i´ve read about them and i always wondered how to fabricate one." All the fear in Shiri was gone now and she had only eyes for the technical marvel in Vader's hand.  
"The task is practically impossible without placing the parts in some kind of zero-gravity condition" the words just bubbled out of her "and that would still not do the trick because how would you then be able to get the crystal to..."

"Crewman Tayen!" lieutenant Parthalan shouted, who had snapped out from his previous shock. "Be quiet and report. What are you doing here?"  
"Sir!" Shiri answered out of pure reflex. "I..." she turned to her workbench."...i mean, the arm, it...i was just trying something and..." She was interrupted by Parthalan and she immediately realised her tongue had slipped instead of keeping to her rehearsed story.  
Lieutenant Parthaland raised his voice. "Trying something? I am beginning to understand what this is all about."

Then he stopped himself, frowned and looked up to the ceiling. "And why aren´t the lights coming on?" he asked and looked back at her. "What have you done to the lights?" Shiri hesitated but it was too late to turn back now.  
"Sir, if the lights go on the status of the room is changed from passive to active, and thus changing the intrusion level of the workshop."  
The Lieutenant looked at her with anger mixed with confusion written all over his face. "Yes?" Shiri swallowed and just flung herself out into explanation.  
"If the workshop has the status of active but the security level...can´t change with it, the security system will take that as an intrusion attempt. The alarm will go off and guards will come running."  
Lieutenant Parthalan shook his head. "Yes, yes. That´s all good and well but what the frell has that got to do with the lights?"  
Shiri was getting irritated at the slow-minded officer. Did she have to spell it out for him? "Sir, i have changed the security level in this room so i can work without the cameras seeing it. The cameras are showing a recording and the motion sensors are so poorly calibrated an AT-ST could walk by without them knowing. Sir."

Vader turned off his weapon and stretched his other hand at the door. The moment after, all the lights in the room came on and the room was flooded with light. The Lieutenants eyes were like to empty holes, doubting what they saw as reality.  
"Have you been manipulating the ships security systems?" He looked at Lord Vader and then back at shiri. "Crewman Tayen. You will now answer my question. What have you been doing here?"  
Shiri took a deep breath and started talking. "Sir, like i said i was trying something on this prosthesis and..." But Parthalan interrupted again.  
"Crewman Tayen! Have you without proper authorization been experimenting on that piece of cybernetics?" With his whole hand he pointed at the artificial arm behind her. Half of his outburst might be from the fact that what she had been doing (for quite some time) was strictly forbidden. The other half came from Lord Vaders precense, witnessing this embarrassment, any one could understand that. When it now was known she had 'experimented' on cybernetics that actually was a part of peoples bodies she was so Farkled and could expect Court martial. It felt like the black statue in front of her could see right through her pitiful little character and would probably immediately known if she lied. Court martial was better that the wrath of Lord Vader so the choice was easy; Confession.

"Sir, yes sir!" But then she quickly turned and grabbed the prosthesis behind her and the words just bubbled out again. "But i can explain. It´s this joint right here that causes problems for a lot of people and i have isolated the interference to this point, see? The Beta-II values are all within specifications on these two intersections here but on this one..." she was once again interrupted by Lieutenant Parthalan who now almost screamed in falsetto.  
"Crewman Tayen! Shut up, and put that thing away immediately..."

The statue suddenly raised a black hand that silenced the Lieutenant. "Continue." he said.  
Shiri looked at the black helmet, then at Lieutenant Parthalan and finally at the cybernetic prosthesis she held in her hands.  
"Well, eh, sir..." she had lost herself and didn´t know how to find her way back.  
"You were explaining the Beta-II values." Vader said and pushed her back on the right track again.  
"Right… Sir. Well, the Beta-II values here and here" she pointed with her finger at the prosthesis "are both within specifications. But here" she pointed again "they are completely off-scale. And when i say off-scale i mean really off-scale. The Sigma-Wave is on 5, TriBase-V is rushing between 63 and 78" she had only eyes for her work now and talked very fast, pointing at several different locations on the prosthesis "and that´s just not possible or this thing would have seven fingers and be two meters long!" "And the mirror-effect?" Vader asked. "Not a chance." she answered like a flash and turned to pick up her datapad behind her. "My diagnostic routine would have picked it up immediately." She started pressing keys on the datapad and muttered "How am i going to explain this for some kriffing..." She just barely stopped herself not to finish the sentence.

It was dead quiet for a few long seconds before Vader turned to Parthalan. "Leave us." he said. "Tell the approaching guards to keep the door closed. I will interrogate Crewman Tayen myself." The Lieutenant looked at Vader, nodded and said "Yes my Lord." and he looked at Tayen and she could almost see a glimpse of pity in his eyes. Then he turned and waved the Stormtroopers to follow him out. Then they were alone, and the Workshop got silent except from the sound of Vader's breathing mechanism. He lifted the handle of his weapon and watched it for a time.

Then he looked at her and said "Your knowledge in one of the core challenges of lightsabre construction is," he paused for a moment "impressive." His gaze fell once more on the weapon in his hand and he lifted it so she could see it better. He turned it around and seemed lost in thoughts before looking straight at her and said "It is a demanding challenge and impossible to master without the power of the Force." Then he smoothly put it away, rested his hands on his belt and said "Now you will tell me where you have gained your knowledge in prosthetic cybernetics." and added, leaning forward ever so slightly "And i assure you, i have some skills in cybernetics myself." Saying this, he flexed his right hand in and out, possibly without thinking of it.

Shiri then told the Dark Lord the short story of her life. How she had grown up in her parents' repair shop, about her ability with mechanics. She told him about her interest in knowing how things worked and her will to make them better. She also told him about her nic-name 'Fixie' and how repairing things made her calm and forget about the world around her, focusing only on the work at hand. It was supringsingly easy to talk to Vader. Even though he just stood there like a black statue, not saying a word, it still felt like he understood her.

So Shiri babbled on about how her poor background had stopped her attempts to join the Academy. There was always someone else from a better family or from a core world to take the place instead of her. Finally she had given up, realizing people like her never would be accepted to any form of higher education. But techschool had gone better and she had made Droids and Cybernetics her field of expertise. She was actually pleased with the station on the Nemesis and she had volunteered for the not-so-popular job with cybernetic prosthesis. It was, from time to time, a rough work but she had liked it anyway. And she also saw how many artificial limbs had defects and knew that people of 'her kind' never would be able to further develop or improve cybernetics. That was purely for the engineers with a graduation from the Academy. But she wouldn´t let that stop her and she had found a way around the system that worked well. Until now.

All along Shiris talking, Vader had remained unmoving and silent. She couldn´t help but wondering if he had fallen asleep in there, behind the mask. When she had finished he still stood silent for a few minutes.  
Then he said "Describe to me the problems you are experiencing with the prosthetic arm you are working on."

THE NEMESIS – TECHNICAL DEPARTEMENT – OUTSIDE THE DROID ASSISTANCE WORKSHOP

Lieutenant Parthalan stood silent outside the door to the Droid Workshop and found himself to pity Crewman Tayen. She had been alone with Vader in there for more than an hour now and everyone had heard the rumours of his methods in the art of interrogation. Few survived with their minds intact. And besides, this was only a simple Crewman who hardly...  
Suddenly the door whooshed open and Vader came marching out. "Lieutenant." He said. "Crewman Tayen will remain in active duty for the remainder of this mission. She will also assist in improving the ships internal security." he continued without stopping his walk. "I will decide her future after the mission is completed."  
"Yes my Lord." Parthalan answered automatically, saluted and stopped while Vader just marched on as if he wasn´t even there.

He watched the dark Lord, the Stormtroopers and the guards disappear before he turned around and walked into the workshop. There he found Crewman Tayen sitting by her workbench.  
"He fixed it." she said when he approached. "Just like that." She didn´t look up on him but continued as if she was talking to herself. "It took him less than ten minutes to figure it out. And it was brilliant. And he did it himself with those giant hands of his while i just...watched. Then he had me walk around to every single workbench in here and, explain how i would fix the things on them."

Under normal circumstances Lieutenant Parthalan had to reprimand her for not standing up in the presence of a senior officer, but not this time. She had just experienced an hour with Lord Vader and she still had all her body parts attached to the right places and was very much alive to tell the tale. So, he decided, he would not press too hard on Naval protocol this time.  
"Tayen." he said softly and put a hand on her shoulder. Only then she seemed aware of his presence and she stood up but a bit unsteady. "Sir?" she said and looked at him. She seemed confused all right. "Come along now Crewman. I'll walk you back to your quarters. I think you need some rest."

THE NEMESIS – PILOT READY ROOM – BLUE SQUADRON

The prospect of maybe flying alongside Lord Vader had gotten the entire Fighter Wing of the Nemesis in a status of almost childish anticipation. Even the Clone pilots talked with respect and admiration of his flying skills. Madaan had himself heard when one of the clones said "I´ve only seen the kind of flying he´s pulling once before. But that was by a Jedi, way back in the Clone Wars."

The flight engineers dispatched to modify Vader's TIE according to his instructions didn´t do very well. He had stretched his hand towards some Ensign and the man had been lifted up in the air while struggling with his breath, all while Vader explained the depths of their incompetence. When he had finished his lecture, the Ensigns face was almost blue and Vader released his invisible grip, sending the unfortunate man falling flat down on the durasteel floor, sucking in air like an engine intake. Then he had dismissed them all, and they were only too glad to get out of there alive. Finally he had crawled down into the fighter cockpit and got the job done himself.

There was another rumour of Vader flying around the ship. It spoke of a tech being interrogated for hours by Vader but then had been set free in the end. Most of the pilots, Madaan included, just thought it was a piece of bantha-poo. If someone would be under Vader's interrogation power for hours the chance of survival was just about non-existent and the possibility to be set free was even less. More likely was that the Dark Lord had spoken to some guy and that person got so scared he wet his pants and then had the story made up to save his face.

Madaan had made sure the Blue Squadron had spent more time in the simulators than any other squadron on board. The usual whining about sim training had not been heard this time and instead all of his pilots had pushed themselves to the limit at every training and Madaan had been proud of his Blues.

"Ok Blues, listen up!" Madaan shouted and the loud talk in Blue squadrons Ready Room went quiet. The Ready Room was the sanctuary and haven of the TIE Fighter pilots. Every squadron had its own and it was an unstated understanding that only pilots was allowed to enter. The walls were decorated with the squadrons coat of arms and a large score board covered a large section of the wall. Everything in a fighter pilots life was a competition and scores were kept on kills, missions, sim-hours, exercise and so on.

"As you all know, we´ll be taking over patrol from Green squadron when we have arrived to Warasolis." Madaan continued. "No hostility is expected so standard patrol pattern Gamma two will be executed. And anyway, If there is anything out there, Green squadron will be the first to know."  
The last sentence produced some low laughter from the pilots.  
Madaan worked the controls in front of him and the orders were sent to the pilots datapads to be studied before the mission. A holo image of the planet Warasolis appeared in the room, and a few pressed buttons later Madaan had produced a holo of the Nemesis. The holoshow was completed with lines, angles, designations, patrol sectors and a whole lot of other flight information.

"We´ll split into the usual four flights and Flight Leaders will dispatch their fighters as they see fit." Then Madaan specified which pilot belonged to which Flight and who would be Flight Leaders.  
"Blue Flight 1 will take this area here, Blue Flight 2 will take this, Blue Flight 3 this and Blue Flight 4 will cover this area." Then he looked out at his men.  
"Like i said, no hostilities expected but still, let's do this" and he put his hand behind his ear indicating he needed to hear this really good. "By the book." the pilots replied and Madaan nodded. "By the book." he echoed with a broad smile. "Ok, now it´s all rest for 9 hours before we´re taking off. Dismissed." he ended and skut down the holoprojector.


	4. 4-Arrival

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE

"20 seconds to normal space Sir." Captain Natane nodded to the officer at the Helm. Lord Vader still stood completely still at the main viewport but Natane knew the black statue saw every move he made and heard every word he said. Possibly he heard every thought he had as well. You never knew with Lord Vader.  
"Entering normal space Sir." the same officer said 20 seconds later and a low vibration went through the ship when the disorder outside the viewports transformed into lines and then quickly changed into the stars of normal space. In front of them the giant green sphere of the planet Warasolis appeared.

"What the...?" Commander Soraan tried to digest the much unexpected picture they were witnessing. Captain Natane on the other hand reacted with lightning speed and immediately began to shout out his orders, but he also noticed an ever so slight shift in the dark Lords posture.  
"Red Alert! Raise Shields and all hands to battle stations!" The bridge crew answered just as fast and acted on pure reflex and training and the alarm klaxons were yelling out its message the second after.  
"Launch Red squadron immediately and set a Phase II security perimeter around the Nemesis." Natane didn´t wait for an answer from Starfighter Operations but instead continued to hammer out his commands.

"Communications!" "Yes sir!" The communications officer answered. "Transmit a message on all channels of a no fly zone near us or we will open fire." "Aye sir!" the officer answered and started pushing buttons on the console in front of him.  
"Commander Soraan," Natane continued. "I want you to personally contact the Warasoli government and find out what the Frell is going on here." "Right away sir." Soraan answered and turned to run for the holo pod by the the Security foyer.  
"Commander!" The tone in the Captains voice made his first officer to freeze and turn.  
"Captain!" she answered and instinctively came to attention.  
"Make perfectly clear to them that if they do not answer we will interpret that as the government has been overthrown and we will restore the imperial order with whatever means we see fit." Captain Natane let an almost mean smile spread across his face. "That will make them more willing to respond."  
"I understand sir." Soraan answered and dashed away.

Captain Natane then took a moment to study the planet in front of them and the veritable space battle they just stumbled in upon. The planet Warasolis was obviously under some form of attack. A small hostile "fleet" made up of a few older ships were engaged in battle with the Warasoli Security forces. Two CR70 corvettes were pounding the two Space Flight Control space stations pretty hard and four Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers were supporting two Munificent-class star frigates who were returning from the surface.

Commonly referred to as the Banking Clan frigate, in its hey days, the frigate could carry up to 150,000 battle droids for boarding or ground operations, and were capable of shielding droid starfighters within their hulls. Natane sighed and wondered what they had gotten themself tangled up with this time. He could see that this attack did not expect any heavy resistance and certainly not any imperial interference or the fleet would have been much larger and more protected. The two frigates had probably carried the main landing party and the cruisers simply guarded them against the Warasoli fighters, who did a brave job out there at the moment but the supposed Warasoli frigates were nowhere to be found and all alone against the attacking fleet the security fighters didn´t stand much of a chance.

Natane also noticed the absence of hostile droid fighters. It was only Belbullab-22 starfighters and old R-41 Starchasers out there. Due to the Warasoli fighter pilots lack of combat experience and piloting skill (a common phenomenon among planetary security forces) and inferior numbers, the attacking starfighters were more than enough to keep the defenders occupied, old fighters or not. And in the meantime, the frigates had been able to compel the troop landings on the surface and were now returning to orbit. But then he noticed the absence of escort fighters for the returning frigates. Even if no resistance was expected you always flew escort to troop landings because you just never knew what might happen down there.

He closed his eyes for a moment, sorting the pieces out. The fact that no fighter droids were launched could mean one of two things. There could of course be loads of fighter droids inside those frigates. Or, if the "cause" didn´t have much support and not the kind of financial muscles needed to buy both fighter droids and battle droids, maybe they put their money on two frigates with battle droids only, while fighter droids were a lot more expensive. The use of living fighter pilots instead of droids pointed in that direction. Natane opened his eyes again, taking in the scene one more time. If so, this was a local coup d'état and not a part of a regular invasion fleet. They wanted to take over the planet, not plunder it and so, they were moderate in their use of force. And by knowing this, he had an advantage.

"Fighter Command!" he shouted. "Yes Sir!" the answer came instantly from Major Edge at the Fighter Command Station.  
"Return Ice Squadron to its previous formation. We´ll need the reconnaissance squadron intact."  
"Yes Sir." the Major answered. Natane turned around and put his hands behind his back as he walked on the Command Walkway.  
"And i want a pilot in every one of those TIE fighters standing by for immediate launch at my command." The clone commander nodded and began to execute his orders.  
"Colonel White." "Captain!" the Clone Commander answered. "Prepare your forces for a full Nova-6 scenario." The Colonel nodded.  
"Yes sir. A planetary reinstatement of imperial governance sir."  
"Yes," Natane nodded "and i want every trooper and vehicle available ready to be dropped to the planet's surface once we gain space superiority. We´ll need to show off as much Imperial force here as we can possibly muster."

THE NEMESIS - HALLWAY

When the alarm went off, Shiri reacted immediately without even thinking, let the tool in her hand fall to the floor and stood up from the astromech droid she was working on. "Sorry little one, got to go." she said and dashed away to her battle station. Her goal was NK-7 ion cannon nr. 42, located on the port side. That cannon was not manned unless the situation got hot, like now.

It took her almost four minutes to get there and she dived down in her seat, strapped herself in, pulled a headset over her dark grey cap and began working the controls. Her job was to assist a Gunnery Ensign to monitor and adjust the ion cannons cooling grid to stop the cannon from overheating. That could lead to fire malfunction, or in the worst case, the whole cannon could blow up. She had gotten there first and when Gunnery Ensign Piki came rushing in she had already gotten the start-up sequence going.

"Report" he gasped when strapping himself in the seat and Shiri recited the status of their station.  
"Well done Tayen." he said and began working his own controls. Then suddenly, a voice was heard in their headsets.  
"Gunnery crew NK-7-42, report." it said and immediately after the different sections that made up a Borstel Galactic Defence NK-7 ion cannon reported their status and Piki contributed with "Cooling grid stable."  
"Ok, NK-7-42, we are good to go, stand by." the Commanding Gunnery Officer ended and the ComLink went silent.  
"So," Piki said, and leaned back in his seat. "then we just wait." Shiri nodded and listened but could neither hear nor feel the Nemesis taking any hits from hostile fire. "We don´t seem to be under attack." she said and leaned back as well.  
"No," Piki answered with a shrug. "Maybe just a drill. You know, with Vader on board and all? That wouldn´t be too unlikely and besides, they said this area wasn´t hot anyway. Yes, definitely a drill." Shiri nodded and then they sat in silence for a while.

Piki then asked with a low voice. "Is it true?" "What?" she asked in return but knew what he meant. There were few who dared to ask her face to face but she was aware of the rumour flying around the ship. Even if not many knew she was directly involved it was still quite awkward.  
"You, cracking the security system and Vader caught you?" Piki continued with a barely hidden curiosity in his voice. Shiri sighed and nodded.  
"Yes, it´s true." Piki shook his head and chuckled.  
"Druk! You must be good." She frowned and looked at him.  
"What?" she asked not sure of what he meant. "  
"Well, he let you live didn't he?" he said and made a gesture at her, sitting there very much alive in front of him. She didn´t come up with a clever answer so she just leaned back in her seat again. After some quiet minutes Piki looked at her again and nodded slightly.  
"Respect Tayen. Respect".

THE NEMESIS – MESS HALL

Blue Squadron was eating in the mess hall wen the alarm went off. "Move!" Madaan yelled before the claxon had been heard for even a second and they all threw themselves out of their chairs so plates and glasses flew all over the place.

TIE Fighter Pilots are extremely fit, matched only by the Stormtroopers, so the run down to the ready room where their flight suites waited was done at suicidal speed. "Faster you Hutt-spawn!" Madaan urged his men when they ran down the hallway to the hangar bays with their bulky pilot helmets on. They whooshed out on the gantries of Hangar Bay 12 and sprinted on to their designated fighters and threw themself down in the pilot seats.  
Madaan quickly went through pre-flight procedures and when all of Blue Squadron had reported in he felt a little calmer. Everyone was in place and ready to go so there wasn´t much to do now except to wait. And they could be hanging here for quite a while. Sometimes they had to sit for...

But then all of a sudden his tactical display came to life and started to display the squadron's preliminary and secondary targets.  
_Dwang!_ he thought. _This is definitely not a drill._

"Ok, Blues, listen up and watch your tacticals." he called out on the ComLinc inside his helmet.  
"Our primary objective is to escort the TIE Bombers of Gold Squadron when they make their attack run on those four heavy cruisers. The bombers will split up in four standard flights and we´ll do likewise, shadowing their set up." The tactical display of the TIE Fighters showed which fighter belonged to which flight, escorting which bombers on route to which cruiser. In all its complexity it was simple enough to follow and every pilot in Blue Squadron knew exactly where to go when they were launched.

"Gold Leader this is Blue Leader, we are ready to go and are standing by for launch." Madaan called out to the squadron leader of the TIE Bombers. It was the deep voice of Commander Bidziil that answered the call.  
"Copy that Blue Lead. It´s good to have you watching´ my back Madaan."  
Madaan smiled inside his helmet. Bidziil was a seasoned bomber pilot and they were good friends. "My pleasure Bidz."  
He then switched to the squadron channel and said just as a reminder "Ok, Blues, stand by for launch order. And remember, the objective is to get the bombers to their targets so don´t let the enemy lead you away on any dogfighting chase, leaving the Gold's alone."

He looked at his tacticals again and noted how the blips marked as friendly were quite outnumbered when compared to the other ones marked as hostile. _They sure need help_ he thought. Red Squadron is going to make Bantha Poodo of those Starchasers and then we make our move with the bombers. All while the Nemesis heavy guns will hammer down the two star frigates, so all in all, this shouldn´t be any problems.  
But he also wondered what had changed the tactical situation. They were told no hostilities were known in the area and the locals would probably even help them on their Jedi hunt. But he quickly shook off any such questions. He was to seasoned to be surprised anymore concerning any changes in planetary politics. When the launch order came, Blue Squadron would stand behind those Bombers and watch out for enemy fighters, which were all he needed to know.

But at the same time, somewhere in the back of his mind, he still wondered how many would not make it back this time.

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE

"Captain!" Commander Soraan shouted, making Captain Natane turn around in the general direction of the call.  
"I´ve got the Warasoli Prime Administrator for you, sir." she said standing next to the Hologram Pod.  
Natane nodded and when he came up to her he said "Good Work Commander." and added with a much lower voice "This shall be interesting.

Then he stepped right into the transmission and put his hands on his back. "Prime Administrator Chebanis, how nice of you to respond." he began. "This is Captain Natane of the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis."  
The holographic image of Prime Administrator Chebanis showed a very fat man dressed in some kind of...costume, decorated with far too many feathers. On his head he wore a large, strange looking hat...or was it an animal of some kind? Chebanis bowed and was just about to return the politeness when Captain Natane spoke again.

"I couldn´t avoid to notice the conflict that seems to be enacted in the Warasoli inner space. Is it something you would care to comment?"  
The Prime Administrator began nodding his head long before Captain Natane had finished speaking and now he was very keen to speak for himself. "Thank the stars you came to us. This is our most desperate hour." He put a hand on his forehead in a dramatic gesture. "The fleet you can see attacking us is clearly a part of a real Coup d'état! An attempt to overthrow the democratic government of Warasolis and to drive us all down in chaos, death and horror!"

The Prime Administrator now covered his face and made some odd noises. It took Natane some time to figure out he was pretending to weep.  
"These pirates," he continued between his sobbing, "have already deployed a large amount of troops in our beloved capital and they are now," he suddenly looked up on Captain Natane. All traces of tears missing, "yes, in this very moment, as we speak in fact, they are spreading death and terror on their way to the Parliament."

_Troops he said_, Natane thought. _Not droids_. Prime Administrator Chebanis shook his head and threw his arms out in resignation.  
"Our security forces are doing their best but are hopelessly inferior in both numbers and armament."  
"I understand." Captain Natane answered calmly, not moving a muscle.  
"So, you still are the First Administrator, leader of the official government of the planet Warasolis, correct?" he asked with the same calm voice.  
Chebanis immediately took away his hands from his face and looked taken aback by the question.  
"Yes." he said. Natane nodded and continued.  
"And how do the Warasoli government want the Empire to act in this matter?" The last sentence was said slowly and with emphasis on every word.  
"We..." Chebanis said, insecure for the first time in many years. "we want you to kill this scum."

Captain Natane nodded again and continued with patience. "So this is an official request for aid from the Warasoli government to the armed forces of the Galactic Empire, is that correct?" First Administrator Chebanis stood still as if frozen in time, unable to comprehend the question.  
"Yes." he said and nodded slowly. "Yes. Just kill them. Kill all of them!"  
Captain Natane nodded again and smiled. "We shall do our best. Route your tactical communications to the Nemesis so we won't shoot down the wrong ships out there."

He was about to step away from the Holo Pod when he turned back as if he just remembered something. "Ah, that´s right. I almost forgot. We are aiding Lord Vader in searching for a wanted criminal who, according to our intelligence, is supposedly located on Warasolis at this time. Can we count on your help in the search for that person?"  
First Administrator Chebanis gave an exaggerated nod almost continuing to a full bow. "Lord Vader? Absolutely Captain. Whatever you may require."  
Natane nodded in return. "Excellent, First Administrator. We are very thankful. Nemesis out." and the transmission was ended.

"It won´t get more official than that." he said smiling when he walked across the Security Foyer to the Communications Consoles. He punched some buttons on a panel and suddenly his voice could be heard in every corner of the mighty warship. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain."

THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42

Crewman Shiri Tayen and Ensign Piki looked at each other. "The Captain?" Shiri asked and Piki whistled.  
"That´s unusual." he said and the both of them listened intensively.

TIE FIGHTER COCKPIT – BLUE LEADER

_This sure isn´t any drill_, Madaan thought when the Captains voice was heard in his helmet.

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE

"We have arrived to our destination, the planet of Warasolis." Captain Natane said through the Intercom of the Nemesis. Every member of the roughly 46 000 members of the crew and Stormtroopers listened.  
"But it is not the peaceful member of the Empire as we first thought. Instead, the planet is under attack. Even as we speak, destructive forces attempt to take control over the planet and overthrow the legitimate government of Warasolis and we have just received an official request from that very government to intervene. But there is even more at stake here."

He paused for a few seconds and Commander Soraan could feel the excitement rise on the bridge as the crew turned to the Captain and waited.  
"Many years ago, as you all know, the Republic was attacked by similar forces, wanting nothing more than to rip the galaxy apart and throw its worlds in a black hole of chaos and terror. That time the Republic was unable to stand up against the attackers and the weak Republic with its weak leaders was thrown into the horrors of the early Clone Wars. It was only when the brave Supreme Chancellor created the Grand Army of the Republic that the wave of terror could be held back."

Natane made another short pause. "And now, we then see how it is starting all over again. New coups, new separatists." Natane raised his voice ever so slightly.  
"But this time we stand prepared. This time the strong Galactic Empire with our strong Emperor is ready. The armed forces of the Empire are ready and there will not be any new chaos. Not when the Empire has arrived. Not on our watch!"

Capitan Natane raised his voice a bit more and his words flew out through every speaker in the huge spaceship and in the helmets of every Trooper and pilot.  
"This time our turbo lasers, our TIE Fighters and our Stormtroopers will crush the uprising. The Galactic Empire will not stand down!"  
He could hear some spontaneous cheering from the bridge crew and he raised his voice even more for the finale.  
"Crew of the Nemesis! We take no prisoners today! We have a world to rescue!"

THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42

"Frell yes!" Shiri and Piki shouted out simultaneously. "That´s what i´m talking about!"

TIE FIGHTER – BLUE LEADER

"Blue squadron." Madaan called out. "You heard the Captain. Let's burn some holes out there!"

THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE

Captain Natane switched off the Intercom and Commander Soraan could not get a word out but just stared in awe at her Commanding Officer.  
Natane, on the other hand, showed no sign of noticing this but instead called out "Star Fighter Command!"  
"Aye Captain." Major Edge replied immediately.  
"I hope your pilots are in their seats for it is time to let them all fly right now. I want everything with a laser flying out to attack those enemy ships. And let Ice Squadron set up a recon-grid as far out as possible. I don't want any surprises. And protect our engines."  
"Yes sir!" Major Edge answered. "They are already on their way."

Natane nodded and called out again. "Weapons Control!"  
"Captain!" the officer in charge answered, standing up at attention and saluting.  
"Start hammering on those two heavy cruisers with everything we´ve got. I´m taking her right through their line and as i said, we don´t take any prisoners today."  
"Yes sir." came the reply and the second after the muffled song of the heavy turbo laser batteries could be heard.

Suddenly, Lord Vader turned at his place by the front viewports and marched down the Command Walkway.  
"Excellent Captain." he said. "I see you have the situation under control. I will personally lead the fighter attack. Relay their command communications to me."  
"Yes My Lord." Natane answered with a slight bow of his neck. He felt almost relieved of the dark Lords sudden interest of the battle and that his handling of the situation was accually given some kind of approval.

But there was no time to rest. "Colonel White." he said and the Clone Commander emediately answered. "Yes Captain."  
"Start warming up those AT-AT barges. I want the imperial presence on the planet to be massive after the space battle is over."  
"Aye Captain." the Colonel answered and he even gave a salute before he turned and walked away towards Army Operations to prepare the ground battle.  
Captain Natane walked over the Command Walkway with his hands on his back, turned his head to V-2BE and made the signal. The protocol droid hurried away to bring him a cup of caf. He stopped by the transparisteel of the main viewports, just where Lord Vader had stood only seconds ago and watched the heavy batteries and TIE Fighters of his ship bring havoc to the enemy. This was going to be a long day.


	5. 5-The Battle

SPACE – THE NEMESIS

After launch, Blue Squadron immediately broke off to the rendezvous point with Gold Squadron. When the TIE Bombers split up into four flights the TIE Fighters did the same and together, in groups of three and three and in the classic arrow formation, the bombers and fighters manoeuvred into position according to their flight plans. "Gold Lead, this is Blue Lead. We are standing by." Madaan called to the leader of the bomber squadron when his flight of three fighters had positioned themselves at the high 7 o´clock.  
"Copy that Blue Lead. We are starting our flight to target."

The bombers made a long side manoeuvre to get in the right position for their attack run. The three TIE Fighters shadowed the three bombers, searching for anything that might come in the bombers way. But the sudden presence of the imperial warship seemed to have surprised the attackers and momentarily they had lost the initiative. But suddenly Madaan spotted two blips on his tactical display coming dangerously close to the bombers flight path.  
"All right, Blue 2 and 8, i think we have our first guests. Two marks at three fifteen. Go and say hello."  
"Copy that Lead." the reply came through the headset as the two TIE Fighters made a sharp turn and flew off to intercept the two R-41 Starchasers coming their way.

The two Starchasers spotted the two TIEs coming at them and split up to engage one fighter each. The TIEs responded in a similar fashion and soon enough the four fighters were entangled in a deadly dogfight dance. Madaan watched his tactical display, looking for other enemy fighters.

Interceptors have two main goals. One is obviously to attack the bombers. The other is to draw away any escort or tie them up so that others may get in and attack the bomber formations. But perhaps that was too complicated for this bunch of...  
Then hist tactical display gave a warning.  
"Blue 2 and 8, this is Blue Lead. We have a second wave coming in. Three marks at five nine. Finish up and return, i´m going for a head-to-head."  
"Hang on Lead, we are already on our way." Madaan could hear the confident voice of Roy in Blue 2.

The R-41 Starchasers were outdated compared to the newer and faster TIE Fighters and when the imperials turned up the flying a few notches they would soon back down and run off. At least Madaan hoped so, or this would be a complicated situation. He pulled his control stick hard and turned sharply to meet the oncoming enemy fighters. Unfortunately, these were not any slow Starchasers but faster Belbullab-22 starfighters.

Feethan Ottraw Scalable Assemblies constructed the Bellbulabs for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, but even after the defeat of the Confederacy, Belbullab-22 fighters continued to roam the space lanes. They were old, but they were fast and easy to modify with newer technology.  
In this three-to-one scenario, Madaan needed to buy time so his two wingmen could return, but still keep the enemies away from the bombers. So, he chooses to meet them head to head with blazing green lasers. This was a very risky move to make, due to the lack of shields on his TIE Fighter.

But by constantly moving his little fighter, using its superior manoeuvrability, Madaan managed to stir the Bellbulab formation and they were forced to break off or be hit by his fire (or his ship if they were really crazy). Then Madaan made a sharp turn, pulled his engines to full and began hunting the Bellbulabs.  
One of them broke off to engage Madaan and to stop him from attacking the remaining two still on route to the bombers. But Madaan had seen it coming and ignored the one and kept pushing for the remaining two. He let green laser rain down on the Bellbulabs and even though it did not stop them, they sure were disturbed by it and they were forced to constantly adjust their course and thereby slow down.

Madaan on his part could see the lonely Bellbulab line up behind him and just as the first burst of fire came to tare his rear apart, he rolled his TIE away, making the two Bellbulabs in front get hit by friendly fire.  
Then he quickly rolled back, because the firing Bellbulab had of course stopped blasting away his comrades, fired a short burst again and rolled away in another direction. But this time the enemy pilot wasn´t falling for it and turned quickly to follow that illusive TIE.

This is where the operation got complicated. Madaan was now hunted by a Bellbulab and the two remaining was still on course to the bombers. The time he had bought had run out and he had to save his own fighter now. That wasn´t too hard to do. The Bellbulab may have been updated but it was still outmanoeuvred by the faster TIE.

Madaan entered a series of scissor manoeuvres and gradually pulled back on the engines letting the attacker slowly come closer. He watched his displays, making sure he timed this perfectly or he would be shot to pieces. He also noted his two wingmen just returning from their mission and attacking the remaining Bellbulabs. _Well done lads_, he thought with a proud feeling in his chest.  
Just when his pursuer got in position and opened up his guns, Madaan pulled hard to one side and pushed his engines into reverse, making the other overshoot him. He then pulled the engines to absolute maximum and the unexpected speed drop combined with the superiority in the TIE manoeuvrability turned the table and the hunter now became the hunted.  
Madaan could quickly get a lock on the Bellbulab and the small fighter exploded in a ball of fire.

Soon after the TIE escort was once again in formation over and behind the bombers.  
"Good job Blues." the bomb leader called out. "Never doubted you could chase them off."  
"Our pleasure Gold's." Madaan answered. What he did not mention to his fellow Squadron Leader was the fact that once the enemy realized the bombers were launched and on their way to target, things would get nasty.

Every fighter pilot feared the bombers. The usual target for bombers in a space fight such as this, were the capital ships. And if they were successful, the fighters had nowhere to come home to. Especially if they lacked hyperdrive capabilities. So, soon they would have enemy fighters swarming all around them.

And sure enough, his tactical display soon showed a large number of hostile fighters coming their way.  
"Blues, listen up." he called, ignoring the communications protocol at this point. "Numerous bogeys coming our way at two ten and six three. The odds are not in our favour but then again, what would be the fun in that? You two take on the first group and i´ll introduce myself to the second. On my mark, three, two..."

"Abort that Blue Leader, and stay with the bombers." a voice interrupted. Madaan immediately recognized the voice, even though it sounded even more mechanical over the ComLink.  
"Understood, my Lord." he replied and the moment after, the TIE Fighters of Red Squadron, led by the dark Lord himself, passed in front of them and engaged the enemy. _Spooky or not, Lord Vader sure had a great eye for battle tactics,_ Madaan thought.  
"All right Blues, You heard Lord Vader. Adjust course to..."

The explosion came from nowhere and Madaans small spacecraft jolted fiercely and was sent spinning around as if a giant's hand hit it. All possible alarms and warnings was flashing, whooping and telling him things were seriously wrong and to top that, his HUD went crazy and an enormous amount of information dazzled in front of his eyes. He closed his eyes and concentrated on not throwing up but he also listened carefully for his twin ion engines but he could neither hear them (or anything at all) through the cacophony of alarms and warnings nor feel the vibrations from the engines through his seat. _Not good,_ he thought and opened his eyes.

The surface of Warasolis dominated his view and it grew larger by the second. Madaan pulled and pushed the control stick, stamped the pedals and pulled the throttle but nothing had any effect. The small TIE Fighter still fell like a rock towards the planet.  
"All right, take it easy now." he said to himself. It felt good to talk out loud, almost as if he would do when talking another pilot down with a damaged fighter.  
"First, we need to end that Drukish noise." he said, or shouted, to howl down the noise. Patiently he worked the controls and cleared alarm after alarm and finally the last siren stopped.  
"Frell, that´s better." he said with a sigh. He could now hear a coughing and knocking sound from the engines behind him. It sounded as if one of the two ion engines was dead and the other one was about to retire at any moment.  
"Right, if one of my Twin Engines is gone then what am i flying? A SIE Fighter perhaps?" He could not stop himself from giggle which made him feel a bit better.

The small fighter now entered the top layer of the Warasoli atmosphere and the shakings got a lot worse. _I sure hope the heat shielding isn´t to damaged_, he thought. But when he could see through the transparisteel how the flames shot up he knew the shields were holding. For now.  
None of his navigational systems were functional so the ship computer could not tell the difference between up, down, left, right or anything at all but instead just kept falling down like a large burning rock from space.  
"Ok, next step is to stop this thing from spinning." he said to himself and began to reboot the gyroscopic core system. It took a while and Madaan was getting edgy.  
"Come on!" he cried out. "We´re in a bit of a hurry here!" Suddenly his display gave the long awaited 'Ping' sound and asked for a fix position for calibration procedures, which normally used the starts and went on automatically. "Yes! Now that wasn´t so difficult?" he said smiling and configured the computer to use the planets magnetic poles in it its calculations. A few more seconds went by, but they felt like hours, and slowly the small spaceship began to level out and stop spinning.

"Thank you very much." Madaan said. "Now to the last chapter. How to avoid crashing into the ground without any engines." Even though the ship had stopped spinning it was still shaking and bumping. A TIE Fighter had outstanding flying capabilities in the zero gravity of space but in an atmosphere it was clumsy, slow and very hard to manoeuvre even under normal circumstances. With broken solar panels and only a single coughing engine it was in fact only a large piece of flaming durasteel falling to the ground. But it also had a pilot inside and this pilot had no intentions of giving up.

Madaan kept on pushing buttons, pull handles and restart systems at a fierce pace. "Aargh!" he shouted. "This ship is farkled!" He then sighed and fell back in his seat.  
"And i´m with it." He could now see he was falling right down towards a very large city and things would go very bad for both himself and the people down there while the city clearly lacked any type of falling-debris-protection-system. Being helpless made him angry and a hot wave of anger welled up from within making him slam his fist in the wall of the cockpit and stomp his feet in the floor.  
"Druk, you piece of junk!" he shouted. Suddenly as if a higher power just had been teasing him, a loud boom was heard behind him and his Twin Ion Engine woke to life with its characteristic shrieking.

"I take it all back!" he shouted and pulled the control stick but nothing happened. "The flight controls are probably fried." he said but then he sat up and smiled.  
"But we do have engine power!" He slammed the engine into full reverse and pulled the repulsorlifts to max, but it still would not be enough. He kept on falling like a rock and did not have time enough to slow his descent and avoid a crash. The ship fell downwards and he could see a small green spot right underneath him coming closer. _Cosy, a park_, he thought. Then he saw a dark spot in all the green.  
"It´s a lake!" he shouted. "That´s my landing spot! With any luck, the water will take some of the impact." He pulled the control stick like a mad man to make the ship hit the water instead of the ground. He was not going to crash any longer. He was going to crash-land and that was a huge difference.  
"Come on!" he yelled. "Just a few degrees!" The last thing he saw was the city, the park and the lake, all rushing towards him.

When he woke up, he did not know where he was. Everything was still pitch black, his body felt sore, beaten up and cold. Very cold. Then the memory of the crash hit him and he realized he had after all managed to hit the lake in the park.  
Madaan was for once very thankful that the TIE Fighter didn´t have integrated life support built into the ship or he would be dead by now. The hull had cracked by the impact and the cockpit was flooded with water. But his flight suit was still intact and that was his real life support system and it had saved him from death by drowning. In the darkness he carefully felt his arms, legs and fingers, looking for any serious injuries but besides from pain in his face, head and chest he had done pretty well. He unbuckled himself from the seat and slowly felt his way around until he felt the access hatch switch. Nothing happened when he pressed it but it was no surprise. In fact, it would have scared him if it would have just wooshed open. Instead, he groped around and pulled out a small handle next to the hatch that would open it manually. It almost took forever but finally he managed to squeeze himself out of the small opening. He kicked with his legs a few times to clear himself away from the wreck, then he activated the flight suites floating aid and it made him slowly ascend to the surface.

The lake was a lot bigger than it had looked from the air but the shoreline to his left was quite near. And when he spotted a group of people pointing at him from that side he started to swim in that general direction.  
It was only about 200m left and Madaan was really beginning to feel he was going to walk away from this crash and soon be back on the Nemesis, when they opened fire on him. At first he could not comprehend what was happening but then he got angry, pulled his sidearm and returned the fire.  
_Druk!_ he thought. _I haven´t escaped a hit from a cruiser, survived a fall through the atmosphere, walked away from a crash landing and avoided drowning only to be shot in the water by some local laserbrains!_

THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42

The Borstel Galactic Defense NK-7 ion cannon number 42 continued to fire after a well-rehearsed procedure. Crewman Shiri Tayen and Ensign Piki did not have much else to do other than to monitor the cooling grid and make one or two minor adjustments of the channels polarization. Piki wondered if there really was an enemy out there or if it was all a drill after all and they were shooting at target droids again. Shiri wanted to point out that by the look at these energy patterns they were most definitely firing live ammo and no training charges, but she did not say anything. Instead, her very own theory was that the enemy either lacked heavy artillery or their gunnery crew simply were lousy at their job.

Their station were placed several levels below the actual gun tower but they could still feel the vibrations from the heavy guns firing. This was as close to actual combat Shiri would ever get when serving on the Nemesis and she took her job dead serious. During battles in the past there had been a busy task keeping the cooling grid stable, all depending on how heavy hits the Nemesis would take. And if the power couplings to the generators got fried and needed immediate replacement, things could get really crazy. But even she was getting bored with this. It could just as well have been a simulation because nothing happened.

The ion cannon worked like clockwork and Ensign Piki reported "Cooling grid stable." every now and then just like every other station. So when Piki got a call in his headset she listened up.  
"Yes sir, this is Ensign Piki sir." He nodded and said "Yes sir, i can handle this, sir." Then he looked at Shiri with a peculiar expression on his face. "Right away sir." and then he ended the communication. "Well now." he said and he could not help but letting a smile spread all over his face. "They have asked you to report to sick-bay and assist if any wounded will show up with broken prosthesis." Shiri nodded, feeling a joy inside her.  
"So run along and do something useful. I´ll try to manage all this" he waved a hand at the display, showing the most stable cooling grid in the galaxy. "all by myself." He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk and let his hands rest on the back of his neck. "I´ll call you back if anything fun should happen."  
Shiri got up and saluted. "Sir, yes sir" and Piki laughed.  
"Don´t look so frellish pleased." She laughed back and said "I´m not laughing, sir. It´s the muscles in my face you see. They have a cramp, sir." Then she dodged out of the room before he could find something to throw at her.

Shiri felt elated and in a way pleased with herself. If she was anything else but a trained and disciplined crewman in the Imperial Navy she would even allow herself to be happy. But of course, the regulations did not allow that so she settled to be elated and grateful to be able to fill an area of competence the Imperial Navy was asking for in this very moment. She walked in a quick pace but stopped and looked through a viewport overlooking hangar bay 12.  
Perfect! No activity at all. Only a lonely Lambda Class Shuttle. Then she could take a shortcut right across the landing bay and avoid the long walk around all the generators connected to the hangar bays. She went down a level, stepped through the blast door to the hangar bay itself and made her way quickly towards the blast door on the opposite side.

"Hey there!" she heard the synthetic voice of a Stormtrooper call from the shuttle, but she pretended not to hear and hurried along.

"Hey, Gambling Girl!" the voice called again and that made her stop. On the shuttles entry ramp a lonely Stormtrooper stood waving at her.  
"I´m collecting that debt of yours." the Trooper continued. "We´ve got a bad transmitter here, could you take a look at it?"  
Shiri giggled and jogged over to the shuttle. "Always a pleasure to help the Empires bravest." she said and shook the troopers outstretched hand.  
"Yes it is, isn´t it?" he said in a cheerful voice. "This way." he continued and they walked up the ramp and in to the shuttle itself where eleven Storm Troopers were sitting, all buckled up in their seats with their backpacks in front of them.

"Troopers!" the armour clad Trooper next to her suddenly called out. "This is Crewman Shiri Tayen, special call sign within the Legion; Gambling Girl." Shiri blushed a bit when the sitting Storm Troopers greeted her with nods or grunts. One of the Troopers pulled off his helmet and Shiri walked over to him and took it.  
"The transmitter in the internal ComLink seems to be fried. I can hear them but they can´t hear me." Shiri smiled and nodded.  
"No problem. It´s a known issue and i´ll have it fixed in no time." She pulled out a small tool from her belt and dismounted the small access panel hiding the ComLink itself inside the helmet. She knew at once why the problem had occurred. His helmet had an older type of ComLink circuits but she did not want to tell the Trooper he had an older helmet. This was a known quality problem and on the new ones this was taken care of. Well not that new. _How long had he been wearing this helmet anyway? _

As usual when she was working, the world around her disappeared and she entered a bubble of concentration. That was why she did not hear the steps walking up the ramp or the monotonous hissing of the breathing respirator.  
"Take off immediately." a voice said and at once she knew to whom it belonged.  
The Trooper who had waved her in had already snapped to attention and yelled "10huut!" and all the sitting Troopers saluted Lord Vader, though still strapped in, when he entered the shuttle. The repulsorlifts roared and the ramp closed up behind him when the shuttle slowly lifted from the hangar bay floor . He nodded to the standing Trooper and turned to walk down to the cockpit.

Shiri was shocked and the Trooper, whose helmet she still held in her hand, must have seen this and he put his hand on her arm.  
"Ma'am?" Shiri jolted back to reality and the Trooper smiled at her saying "It looks like You´ve just hit the Jackpot, Gambling Girl. Welcome aboard."  
She smiled a nervous one back at him and said "Thanks. This must be my lucky day, huh?" Then she returned the helmet. "There." she said and nodded. "As good as new."  
The Trooper pulled the helmet over his head, talked for a moment before he in turn nodded to her. "Thanks again." he said. "I really mean it. Without proper communications, i would have been dead meet out there."  
"No problem." she answered with a wider smile this time. "Just glad i could help." _You´ll die anyway_ she thought to herself. _You´ll all die anyway and i´ll die right there beside you._

She felt a tap on her shoulder and when she turned her head she found herself looking into the dark eye lenses of another Stormtrooper. This with them looking all the same was already beginning to get to her. No insignias, no numbers, no nothing. How could they tell one apart from the other anyway?  
"Sorry about this Gambling Girl." he said and she knew who this Trooper was. "This was not my intention. But don´t worry, this is what you´re going to do. Auxiliary station #2 is vacant in the cockpit, right behind the gunnery station on the starboard side. Take your seat there and buckle up. After our drop, the shuttle will return to the Nemesis and you´ll simply follow it along, right back where we came from. Ok?"  
She looked at the cockpit, looked back at him and nodded  
He nodded again and said "Good. And by the way, you have 12 Stormtroopers with you and Lord Vader himself. What could possibly go wrong?"  
_Everything_ she thought but she answered "Like i said, no problems. Just glad i could help you guys out." Then she turned and walked over to the shuttles cockpit.

Lord Vader was sitting to her immediate left on Auxiliary station #1 and her empty seat was on the right side. She slid down on her seat, strapped herself in and pretended like this was just another day at the office. Through the viewport she could see they were not alone but in fact in the middle of a large assembly of vessels on route to the planet's surface. Even though she really was afraid she could not help but to feel a certain amount of excitement.  
Here she was in the middle of the landing operation, and in addition to that, in Lord Vader's shuttle! She was not even going to unbuckle her seatbelt during the operation but it still made her proud to be here. She had never been this close to actual combat before and certainly not on this high level either.

Simulations and training were one thing but this was something completely different. In a childish way she felt as a part of the operation and not as merely a spectator. She felt more like an...observer, actually. That´s right! She was an observer. She had heard of those before. Unconsciously she straightened up and turned her head to 'observe' her surroundings. She let her gaze play over the interior of the shuttle, the Gunnery station just in front of her, The Co-pilot seat in front of that, the Pilot-seat on the port side, the other Auxiliary station ...her blood froze to ice when she realized Lord Vader was looking at her.  
"Crewman Tayen." he said with his synthetic voice. "We meet again." She could not make a sound and just pointed backwards, then at herself and then managed to gasp  
"Yes my lord."

They flew through the atmosphere and sat a course for Warasaan, the capital of Warasolis. At all times they had Imperial War Vessels around them and Lord Vader spoke to the different parts of their small 'fleet'. Shiri did not understand much but apparently the ground assault had already begun and it was going better than expected. It was only at a few locations the enemy put up a fierce and well organized resistance. The other pockets of uprising was quickly locked in, broken down and destroyed.

The largest spaceports were already liberated and patrolled by AT-ATs. The terrorists had definitely planned to quickly take control of the planets administrative centre and then declare some sort of utopia or something like it. That was where they had concentrated most of their troops and it was there the fighting was most brutal and intense. And of course, that was where the shuttle with Lord Vader was going so the Emperors enforcer could clean up among the low lifers and restore the Imperial order to the planet.

The shuttle manoeuvred among the high skyscrapers of the city when System Op Station suddenly called out.  
"Sir, i have a distress signal from a location on the ground in our flight path."  
"Ok." the pilot answered but he did not seem to be interested.  
"Sir, it´s a TIE Fighter pilot and from what i can read, he´s under heavy attack from hostile ground forces."  
"Ok," the pilot answered again, his voice a bit tense. "i heard you the first time. He´ll have to take care of himself. This is not a search and rescue operation." The shuttle lowered its altitude and flew in over a green park area.  
"Sir!" the Op Station called once again. "He is only a kilometre away and in our immediate flight path, sir. No rescue forces is anywhere as near as we are. Sir."  
"Copy that Ops." the pilot answered. "That is not a concern of ours."

There was a moment of silence and then the co-pilot looked at the pilot.  
"Sir, maybe we could just make a quick over flight to show our presence. A burst or two from our double blaster cannons would...  
"Listen!" the pilot interrupted with an high and irritated tone. "We are not putting ourselves in danger and getting tangled up in a ground battle we don´t know anything about. Is that understood?" The co-pilot stared in disbelief and with a blank look on his face.  
"But Sir," he pleaded. "He´s one of us. A fellow pilot. He's our brother?"  
The pilot then snapped and shouted "Listen up you idiot! We are not to deviate from our present course! "The pilot was sweating now and his face was red as a warning light. "TIE pilots are expendable. Troopers are expendable. Just like those damned clones before them who were breaded for the single purpose of dying! They accept this and you´d be wise to do the same!" The co-pilot shook his head in disbelief and bravely stood his ground.  
"We can´t leave a brother behind, sir. It´s just not right."  
That made the pilot really mad. He lifted his finger to the co-pilots face and began telling him off with an intensity seldom before seen in a shuttle cockpit.

Shiri who sat behind the two pilots had been noticing how Lord Vader didn´t move a muscle during the pilots 'conversation' but when the co-pilot first said the word _'brother'_ she almost thought he had twitched just ever so slightly before he turned his head to the left and looked out through the viewport. Just as the pilot really was building up steam in his verbal abuse, Vader rose a hand and the pilot suddenly choked and turned even more red than earlier.  
"I find your lack of faith for your brothers in arms disturbing." Then Vader turned to the only pilot present who was still breathing normally and said "Adjust our course appropriate."  
"Yes sir." the co-pilot, now the shuttles new pilot and commander, answered and worked the controls without even looking at his dying predecessor who now were blue in the face and just stopped twitching. "There!" he called out. "He´s alive! I can see him by the water. There are at least 8 or 10 enemies down there and they´ve got him pinned down good."

Vader then suddenly stood up and ordered "Open the entry ramp and circle the area until my return." and then immediately turned and walked out from the cockpit.  
_What?_ the co-pilot thought but knew better than to question an order and pressed the switch. The shuttle immediately started shaking when the entry ramp was lowered, disturbing the ships aerodynamics.  
"Frell!" the co-pilot then shouted. "He just...jumped!"

WARASOLI CAPITAL – PARK AREA

Lt. Commander Arien Madaan was beginning to feel a bit sceptical about his immediate survival. There were ten or twelve enemies and they were far better armed than he was. This was a pilot's worst nightmare, being shot down behind the enemy lines and attacked by hostile ground forces. He had managed to surprise them by getting out of the water at some distance from where they first shot at him. But they had spotted him of course and then he had not been able to move very far, being forced to stay down and find cover in the terrain all the time.

At first they had just come running right at him and a series of quick shots from his sidearm had taken out three of them. That made them a bit more careful. They were not very organized and that was something Madaan was very glad for. They could easily have covered each other and advanced in groups or pairs, pinning him down under constant fire while they closed in on his flanks. That way this would already be over. But they did not think that far ahead so instead it was him up against nine individualists who could not think as a group. But even so. They slowly came closer and as soon as he put his head up, blaster bolts were flying everywhere. He did manage to take another one out and for the moment they had stopped in their tracks.

That was when he heard the sound of a Lambda class shuttle flying by right over them. For a moment he thought those double blaster cannons would play their tune so he hit the ground for cover. But it just flew away so he risked putting his helmet up and saw how it turned back again, giving him new hope. But then he noticed the shuttle was flying with the entry ramp open! Was the ship damaged or was the pilot drunk or something? And then he got his next shock when he saw a black shape suddenly lunge itself out in the open air and fall down like a giant bird of prey diving down for the kill.

At first it looked as if it would fall right at him, but then he saw what or who it was and the next thing he knew, Lord Vader gracefully landed on his feet, squated down with one hand in the ground and the other stretched out , holding a short cylindrical tube. When the roar of the shuttle engines had died out, things got almost unnaturally calm and quiet around them and Madaan could hear the monotonous hissing from his breathing apparatus.  
Slowly, the dark Lord rose to his full height, still holding the cylinder in his outstretched hand, turned slightly back to him and said "This will soon be over." Then a beam of concentrated red light shot out from the cylinder with a strange snap-hiss sound, like rod or a sword.

That somehow awoke the paralyzed enemy and they all opened fire at this new player. But Vader was not there anymore but had taken a giant leap in the air and landed in the middle of the enemy line. The red sword of light whirled around like a tornado, blocking blaster bolts with incredible speed and sending some shots right back at the ones who fired them in the first place, killing them with their own fire. The battle was over in less than a minute. Vader chopped limbs off to the right, opened guts to the left and sent a huge rock in the air by a twist of his hand. The rock then knocked down two enemies, crushing spine, chest bones and vital internal organs as it came down.

He fought with what Madaan only could describe as a deep and all-consuming anger feeding him with an enormous power.  
The last enemy threw his rifle to the ground and threw his arms in the air. "I surrender!" he cried. "I surrender!" he cried again when Vader walked up to him, towering over the seasoned veteran mercenary that moments before was firing a blaster rifle, but now mostly looked like a panicked little boy. "Mercy." he snivelled.  
Vader took hold of the man's throat with one hand and lifted him up into the air. "The Empire brings peace and order to the galaxy. It shows no mercy to traitors." And although Madaan were some distance away, he could still here the sound when the man's neck snapped.

Vader tossed the dead man away as if it were only a doll, put his weapon away and walked back to Madaan. "Pilot, are you injured?" he asked and rested his hands on his belt. "No sir, nothing serious, sir." Madaan answered and stood up from his cover. A sharp pain erupted in his left shoulder and instinctively he put his right hand on it.  
"Only my shoulder, sir. I fell pretty bad a while ago."  
"You fell?" Vader said with a sudden interest. "Where, show me." Madaan turned around and pointed with his other arm in the general direction of a pair of large boulders.  
"Over there, sir. I had to throw myseEEEEAAaaaahhh!" He cried out in pain when Vader's giant hands quickly took hold of his injured shoulder and twisted.  
"The joint was dislocated and had to be adjusted back into position." Vader said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
When the bright spots vanished from his eyes and he could breathe normal again, Madaan said "Thank you sir, it feels much better already."

There was a kind of grunting sound from the large man's helmet and it struck Madaan that Lord Vader must be chuckling. "No, it does not." Vader said. "But in time, it will." Suddenly he bent down and threw Madaan over his shoulder as if he were just a bag and not a full grown man in pilot gear.  
"Hang on." he said and Madaan did not have time to think if Lord Vader was ironic, before he took a giant leap into the air, just when the shuttle came passing over them. He landed on the still opened access ramp and walked up and in to the shuttle itself.

Two Stormtroopers quickly took hold of Madaan and he let out a grunt when the pain from the shoulder hit him again.  
"Are you all right brother? Do you have any injuries?" one of the white Troopers asked.  
"What? No. No, it´s nothing." Madaan said somewhat confused. "It´s the shoulder. It was dislocated but he..."  
Madaan turned to catch a glimpse of Vader when he marched in to the cockpit. "...he just pulled it back into place. Just like that. Like it was nothing."  
"Ok, that´s fine." The other Stormtrooper said and the both of them supported Madaan to the only two empty seats. "Here, take my seat and just relax. Soon you´ll be back on the Nemesis and then straight to sickbay."

But Madaan shook his head in protest. "No, listen. You guys need to sit. My part in this is over but i guess yours haven´t even begun yet?" The two Troopers didn´t say anything. "Look. I was pretty sure i was going to sign out for good back there when that big black statue of a man just fell down in front of me. Believe me when i´m saying i´m happy sitting on the floor. Alive." and then he ended the discussion by simply sitting himself down on the shuttle floor, leaning against the wall opposite the refresher. The two Stormtroopers looked at each other, shrugged and let the obviously still confused pilot do as he pleased.

Madaan pulled his helmet off and he probably looked like a Drovian or somethingin his face because the Trooper next to him asked "You had to take a lot of beating huh? How´s your head? Did you land on it or what?"  
Madaan grinned and that made his face hurt. A lot.  
"Very funny. You know, standard emergency landing procedure. Put your head in the sand."  
He then put his hand to his face and very gently felt the swollen skin with his fingers. When he looked down into his helmet, he could see blood all over it. He probably hit his head on the impact and that was what knocked him unconscious.

Then Madaan nodded and smiled. "Well, i´m glad you guys turned back for me."  
Some Troopers looked at each other and then one of them said "It wasn´t any of our doing. It was Lord Vader who commanded it."  
Madaan looked at the white helmet in doubt. "What?"  
"Yes." the Trooper said and then he hesitated, looking around as if to make sure nobody was listening.  
"I mean, this is third hand information and all, but Ops picked up your distress signal, but the pilot wouldn´t hear anything of it. The Co-pilot argued you can´t leave a brother behind, a fellow _pilot_ that is." The trooper then leaned forward as if speaking of something confidential.  
"But the Pilot freaked out and started yelling about how you weren´t any brother of his and all TIE Pilots were expendable just like all Troopers and so on."  
Then another trooper picked up, eager to tell the tale. "But that didn´t please Lord Vader at all, no sir! He simply choked the guy to death and ordered the shuttle to turn around."

Madaan had to take a deep breath to take it all in. "So you mean" he said, slightly tilting his head "Lord Vader, himself, turned this very shuttle around and jumped off in mid-flight just to pick me up?" Both Troopers nodded.  
"Yes sir, that´s how it went down and if you don´t believe us you are welcome to have a look in the cargo bay where we put the pilots body."  
Madaan put his hands up "I believe you, i believe you." he said. "I just can´t believe it."  
The Trooper nodded. "I understand how you feel." he said and made a twitch with his head towards the access ramp.  
"When the ramp was opened we all thought it was some kind of improvised air drop." Then he slowly shook his head.  
"But then 'he' casually walked down the ramp and just jumped off. I´ve never seen anything like it."

Then they all sat in silence for a time before Madaan asked "Did you say 'Brother'? You can´t leave a _Brother_ behind?"  
The Trooper nodded. "That´s right. Whatever it meant, Lord Vader sure didn´t like the way he talked."  
"Brother." Madaan said to himself. "If i remember it right, that´s what the Clone Troopers used to call each other. Maybe Lord Vader fought with them in the Clone Wars and it brought back some memories" The Troopers looked at Madaan and nodded.  
"Sounds reasonably." Then they sat in silence again, each deep in his own thoughts.


	6. 6-Confrontation

WARASOLI CAPITAL - STREET LEVEL

Retired Jedi Master Tokasi Ben-Kai, or rather, Senzo Osami as he was calling himself these days, walked through the doors of the restaurant 'The Galactic Tranquillity' to have his lunch. It had been a chaotic day at the office, just like all the days of these past few weeks. The political climate on Warasoli had gotten much tensed and it had culminated in yesterday's coup which had turned the lives of everybody upside down. Any regular fighting had been scarce on the planet itself while most apparently took place in space and for a time, the planetary security forces had been able to keep the enemy at bay. But then this very morning, the main force of the enemy had reached Warasolis and a landing of troops could begin. It was mostly the administrative areas that had been seized but you could still hear the sound of explosions in the distance and...Suddenly he felt a presence in the Force and it had such an impact on him that it was only through a great effort that Tokasi did not reveal his own presence. He had not felt this one since he left the temple that day, almost 10 years ago. _'Jorani'!_

He spotted her immediately and she was sitting with...a little girl? The waiter droid then came up to him and he asked for a booth further in. It had doors you could close and it gave a little more privacy. He ordered a cup of ché while pretending to study the menu, just to get rid of the droid for a while. In secret, he peeked at his former padawan and found that she had both changed a lot, and still looked much the same as she once did. But the thing that bothered him the most was how openly she made her presence known in the Force and...the confusion that surrounded her. Could it have something to do with the little girl sitting next to her, munching at a piece of bread?  
The girl also had a slumbering but powerful aura in the Force. He took a sip from his hot cup and concentrated.

Extremely slow and just as careful, he let a thin string of the Force reach out from him and touch her without her even knowing he was there. She had no defences or walls around her mind at all. That was not good. What he saw next made him even more concerned. Confusion, anger, fear and a sense of hopelessness filled Joranis Force signature. Tokasi pulled back just as careful as he had reached out and he was troubled. There were definitely something wrong here.  
On the other hand, what else was expected when the order was gone, the temple burned and all surviving Jedi branded as traitors and hunted down by the empire? The question at hand though, was how he would proceed right here and now. He had no knowledge of what Jorani might, or might not, be involved with and he had sworn never again to interfere with the concerns of the order. Besides, he reminded himself, he had a life of his own now and he was actually quite happy with it.

On the other hand, this was not just any random Jedi. This was Maly 'Grasshopper' Jorani, as he once took as a padawan learner when she was but a little girl and had watched grow up to become a full-fledged Jedi knight. No matter how many years would pass, he would still feel some kind of responsibility for her. And her emergence in this very restaurant when he was going for lunch was too much of a coincidence. Clearly, the Force was at work here. But would she welcome him or would she run away, or worse, get hostile?

When the waiter droid returned, he decided to do a small test. He ordered the fish-of-the-day-with-noodles and another cup of Ché but gave specific instructions on how to prepare the hot drink and that it should be served to the lady at that table over there. He waited until the droid came up to Jorani with the cup of steaming liquid. He could not hear what she said but when she rejected the cup the droid pointed at Tokasi, sitting in his booth. The droid left Joranis table with the cup sitting on the table right in front of her and Tokasi could see how she watched him with the Force. He was quite calm and knew she could not 'see' him at all which should make her a bit confused. So she looked at her cup again and suddenly she twitched and a wave of perception, recognition, doubt and...hope came rushing through her.

She stared intensively at the cup again, lifted it to her nose and sniffed it. Then she looked right at him again, he still sat completely still, staring into the table. She sipped her Ché and he could feel how she made her decision. Jorani said something to the little girl who had dozed off and the two of them walked over to him. Before she got a chance to say anything he made a gesture for them to sit down on the opposite side of his table and the little girl quickly jumped into the booth, curled up in a ball by the wall and dozed off again. Jorani also sat down but in a little more sceptical way and he slid the door shut behind her.

"Hello Grasshopper." he said, lifted his head and looked into her eyes with a smile. At the same time, he let his presence in the Force be known and she quickly drew a breath. "Master!" she whispered and covered her moth with her hand. He held up a finger. "Not anymore." he said with a soft tone "I left all that behind a long time ago, remember?" She stared at him as if she doubted what her eyes were seeing.  
"You recognized your Ché?" he asked with joy in his voice.  
"Yes, but it took me a while to remember." she said, still with doubt written all over her face. "Master, is it really you?"  
"Yes Maly, it is me." he chuckled and only now she seemed to fully accept his presence and he noticed how she relaxed and calmed down.  
"You don´t know how glad i am to see you." she said after a time of silence. "Or to see any friendly face at all for that matter." She covered her face with her hands and sighed. "Oh, i´m such a mess." then she took away her hands and looked at him. "How did you find me anyway?"

He smiled and said "Easy. I walked through that door over there to have my lunch and saw you sitting here. Or rather, you were broadcasting your presence in the force for everyone to see so i couldn´t have missed you even if a rancor walked by." She blushed a little and giggled, looking down when her former master lectured her.  
"Hm, well master, i´ve had some things on my mind so i haven´t been all that focused lately." Then she looked at him again with intense in her eyes and he knew what she was going to say.  
"But i couldn´t see you. Not even when i sat down here in front of you. Your Force aura is somehow blurry and, well, not sharp, almost transparent and very faint. Hadn´t i seen you with my own eyes, your seat might as well be empty. You are somehow blocked from the Force. How do you do it?"  
He chuckled and said "That, my former padawan, is a long story and, as usual, include a lot of hard training."

Then he got serious and looked at her, leaning forward a bit. "But enough said about me now Maly. Tell me what´s bothering you."  
She sighed and looked at the sleeping girl and could not stop herself from smiling. "She´s either completely crazy, running around, jumping and laughing or she is exhausted and falls asleep." Suddenly the waiter-droid knocked on the booth door with his order and Tokasi asked Jorani if she was hungry.  
"Well, yes, maybe just a little." she answered and Tokasi quickly ordered what used to be her favourite dish when she was a girl which made her laugh.  
"I´ve almost forgotten about that. How can you remember it?" He smiled, slightly embarrassed.  
"You were my last apprentice and the day after your trials i left the order. Call me an old sentimental man if you like."  
She nodded once, slowly. "You were right master." she said thoughtfully. "The Clone Wars did mean the destruction of the order."  
"Well," he said and tilted his head. "Not quite. I´m afraid it wasn´t all that simple looking at it in retrospective." then he chuckled again. "But as an old friend once said, that was all just an excuse for me to leave the order in an honourable way."

While they were eating, Jorani finally told him what was lying heavy on her heart. She had plaid her usual game with the Empire, blowing up something big and important and that made them angry as a swarm of wasps and they came after her. Nothing unusual about that. It´s how they always plaid the game.  
But then she had found the little girl, crying just outside a small shop blown to pieces. He parents laid dead on the ground next to her and the crying girl tried to wake her mother up as if she was just sleeping. The small family had probably just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"True." Tokasi interrupted "But also consider that from the girl's point of view, you were on the right place at the right time. Or she would probably had succumbed."  
Jorani nodded and continued. "But i also sensed her to be Force sensitive and both you and i know all too well what it would mean if the empire would find her."  
Tokasi nodded, adding "So you took her with you." "Yes." she said, slowly nodding. "I couldn´t just let them take her, kill her, or worse, turne her to the dark side. She felt like...well, one of us." Tokasi could feel her anger rising but said nothing. This was not a time for lessons.  
"I mean, look at her." Jorani said and turned her eyes at the sleeping little girl. "She´s just a child. A little girl. Could you imagine her in the hands of the Emperor or Lord Vader?"

She calmed herself down and let her head rest in her palms. "I didn´t even have a plan. I just took her and kept fleeing from the Stormtroopers chasing me." Then she shook her head, still covering her face. "But it all went wrong. I´ve been outsmarting the empire for the last six or seven years now. I´ve even faced Vader, twice, and escaped to tell the tale. But in less than two weeks, this little girl here has razed it all and put me in some serious trouble." Jorani took her hands away and Tokasi could see how tired she was. She pushed her empty plate away and slumped back in her seat.

"I´ve never seen Vader myself," he said. "but if only half of what i´ve heard about him is true, then you´ve truly performed some acts of wonder."  
Jorani smiled slightly, almost in a shy way. "Mm, but it all went out of my hands. It grew too big for me to handle. "Then she looked up into the ceiling. "He´s up there now, you know that don´t you? I messed up big time and he´s been following me to this place. According to the Administrations HoloNet feed an entire Star Destroyer has come to help them against the rebels, but it´s me they´re really after".

She shook her head and said with a tired voice "Frell! I can get out of this, i know i can. But not with her. Vader won´t give up until i´m in the net and soon enough he´ll end this little planetary uprising and he´ll be able to do some serious hunting." Then she sighed again and slumped even deeper in her seat.  
"We were only to stay her a few days. Just to get my ship repaired, and then we´d be off again. But then this rebellion got in our way and all space traffic was shut down. I could probably have blasted my way out, if i was alone, but not together with her. I just can´t do it. Not a chance."

Tokasi nodded. "I understand." he said and leaned forward, continuing in a lower voice. "But you were meant to find this child, you know that as well as i do. However. It may not be your task to take care for her while she grows up. You must find someone who can before you leave."  
Jorani sighed again, looked quickly at the girl, still sleeping, and then turned back to him. "Well, i´ve been thinking about that. But it´s more than just caring for her. She must be trained. At least enough to hide her powers so she won´t be exposed. Who´s going to do that if i leave her? Jedi masters don´t grow on trees these days you know." Tokasi chuckled and said "And yet, there is one sitting right in front of you. Even though he is a retired one."  
That seemed to raise her spirit just a little bit. "That´s true. What a coincidence, huh?" Then she giggled and mimicked his voice. "There are no coincidences, young padawan. Only the Force." The memory of lessons long ago made him smile and she asked "I suppose there is no chance of you taking care of her?"

His answer surprised her. "The possibility has actually crossed my mind." Her eyebrows rose and her hopes with them.  
"I have been eating my lunch here every now and then for several years now." And he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "My office is just nearby. There were no coincidences who lead my way here this very day. Just as little as luck were leading your steps. It was indeed the will of the Force for us to meet."  
Jorani was just about to say something but he held up his hand and she kept silent while he continued. "But, i did swore an oath a long time ago to never again interfere in the concerns of the order. I am sorry Maly, but i cannot take care of this child." Jorani nodded and he could feel how the small hope she had faded away.

Then suddenly she had an idea and she smiled faintly with a cunning look on her face.  
"Master." she began, ignoring him frowning at her using that title. "You took an oath to never again interfere in the concerns of the Order, was it not so?" Tokasi nodded, wondering where she was going with this.  
"Just so." he said. She nodded and continued.  
"Then listen to me. This girl is four years old. Five at the most. She wasn´t even born when the empire rose up to power. The order has fallen a long time ago and doesn´t exist anymore. These two circumstances together makes it impossible for this girl to be a concern of the Order because there hasn´t even been a Jedi Order for as long as she has lived."  
Tokasi nodded, suppressed a smile and said "True. But also a little bit vague." Now Jorani nodded in turn.  
"That may be. It really was the will of the Force for us to meet, i see that now. But that means the girl is not the concern of the Order, she never was, but instead she is the concern of the Force." And now she smiled a triumphant smile. "And you don´t doubt the Force do you, master?"

Tokasi was silent for a while, searching within himself. He already knew the three of them meeting like this was all too much of a coincidence and he felt the living Force was at work here. The Order he once swore to keep away from was long gone and all its 'concerns' with it. He thought it over once again before he nodded.  
"I see you have gained in wisdom during all these years."  
Jorani then laughed and all her troubles seemed to be gone when she answered "I had a great teacher, master."

WARASOLIS – ADMINISTRATION ASSEMBLY HALL

The shuttle carrying Lord Vader finally arrived at the administrative centre of the planet. It landed in a large open area in front of a huge and very impressive building. There were a lot of troops gathered here and through the main viewport, Shiri could see many AT-STs on patrol. TIE Fighters flew in formation all over the sky to even further enhance the impression of imperial power and superiority. When the repulsorlifts smoothly set the shuttle down and the entry ramp was lowered, Lord Vader rose and said "Come. I have a task for you."

Shiri had not been listening. She was set to just remain in her seat and follow the shuttle back to the Nemesis. Then she noticed from the corner of her eye that the Co-pilot and the Gunner had turned their heads and were staring at her.  
"What?" she said and in the same moment realized that Lord Vader had been speaking to her. She jumped up and sprinted down the entry ramp, following the dark Lord and his twelve Stormtroopers. But she did not quite know where or even how to walk. She had to walk very fast to keep up with the others but should she walk beside Lord Vader (he had, after all called her), just behind him, slightly to the left or perhaps last in the Stormtrooper column? She did not have much time to figure things out so she just hurried along a little to the side of the 'real' imperial forces and that made her feel more like some kind of mascot.

Just before they passed through the buildings gigantic set of doors, Lord Vader called her to him. He pulled something out and handled it over to Shiri.  
"I want you to set up a communications link to the Nemesis and have Captain Natane standing by."  
"Yes sir." she answered at once, turning the gadget around in her hands. It was a portable Holo-Projector and it took her less than 30 seconds as they walked, to establish the connection and relay the dark Lords command up to the Nemesis.  
"Copy that." the communication station answered in the other end. "The Captain will be standing by."

They marched in to a very large hall, probably functioning as some kind of official reception area in the administrative building. It was a great number of people gathered inside, sitting on many levels like an amfi theatre and cheering loudly. Probably high officials or other representatives of the higher classes of society with influence. Now, with the battle more or less won, they all wanted do get as much light as possible from the victory to fall on them. _The only problem is_, Shiri thought and looked at the black cape of Lord Vader, _darkness does not reflect light. It consumes it._

At the other end of the giant hall, there was a podium raised with six steps leading up to it where a number of people were standing and Shiri guessed they must be members of the planets highest administration. In the centre, some steps in front of the others, Prime Administrator Chebanis stood, still wearing that impossible suit with far too many and too large feathers and on his head, that strange hat...or if it really was an animal of some sort. Lord Vader halted at the foot of the podium and the Stormtroopers halted, turned to face each other and took two steps back. Shiri again felt somewhat lost but she knew she probably should keep close to Lord Vader so she placed herself behind him, a little to his left.

Prime Administrator Chebanis put his arms out in a kind of inviting gesture and made a deep, ceremonial bow.  
"Lord Vader." he began. "Allow me first of all, on the behalf of the people of Warasolis express my deepest gratitude. Without your firm intervention we had all been slaves under the boots of the rebels. None is more shocked than myself of the..."

Lord Vader cut him off. "How could this happen?" he said, standing with his hands in his sides. "Where were your planetary defences? Why were you so week?"  
The Prime Administrator looked taken aback of the sudden questioning and looked nervously around for support but when he did not find any, he answered with a well-rehearsed smile on his face.  
"I assure you, My Lord, none is more surprised than i and i also assure you that the committee i am going to set up will go to the bottom of this. I promise that this administration" and he made a gesture with his arm to his colleagues behind him "will not spare any means to find whoever bore the responsibility for this scandal and will not let this happen again!"  
Shiri could almost feel how the air around Vader sparkled of his anger building up. _Wrong answer_, she thought while the Prime Administrator kept talking, more to the crowd now than to the man in front of him. "For some years now i have been suspicious of a hidden corruption within the administration and when i find those who..."

Vader lifted an accusing finger at the Prime Administrator and suddenly the man had trouble breathing.  
"Don´t lie to me Prime Administrator." Vader said and the hall went silent.  
"You are as incompetent as you are corrupt. You have betrayed your people and plundered the state, letting means for planetary defences fall into your own pockets."  
Prime Administrator Chebanis was now purple in his face and sweating heavily.  
"But you were right about one thing." Life at last ran out of the choking man. "_You_ will not let this happen again." The lifeless body fell to the ground.

"Who among you is vice Administrator?" Vader asked the terrified crowd at the podium who tried to get as far away from their dead colleague as possible without actually leaving the podium itself.  
"I-i-i am, my Lord. I am vice Administrator Bovrec." Vader raised his hand and pointed a finger at the man, who drew a breath in terror and staggered backwards, thinking his last moment had come. But nothing happened and instead he stumbled on his colleagues and fell to the floor.  
"Good." Vader said. "You are now acting Prime Administrator of this planet." Then he turned to Shiri and she at once held up the small HoloProjector in her palm, activated it and the blue miniature figure of Captain Natane appeared .

"My Lord." he said and looked like a perfect exampel of an imperial officer. Vader turned once again to the crowd at the podium and spoke.  
"The leadership of this planet is incompetent, corrupt and on the edge of treason against the Empire. It is not acceptable. The instability of Warasolis will not serve as an example to other corrupt planets. Therefore, the security of the planet will remain under the protection of the orbiting Star Destroyer Nemesis until the safety and stability of this planet is once again guaranteed." There was moment of silence while the words just spoken sank in. Then Vader continued.  
"Captain. This is the new acting Prime Administrator. He will answer to you during the time it takes to establish proper imperial gouvernance again."  
"Yes my lord." Captain Natane answered. _Right answer_, Shiri thought._ Short and right to the point. _Vader again turned to the newly appointed Prime Administrator Bovrec.  
"I will keep myself informed about this planets development." Then he pointed at the poor man who instinctively put a hand on his throat.  
Don´t make me come back, Acting Prime Administrator." He then turned around and marched out with the footsteps of the Stormtroopers echoing behind him.  
No one was cheering any more.

When they had left the hall and was on their way back to the shuttle, Shiri could feel the small HoloProjector she still held in her hand was vibrating and beeping.  
"Sir." she said but Vader just kept walking. "Sir, there is a message for you." she repeated, held up the small device and the figure of Captain Natane reappeared.  
"What is it Captain?" Vader asked, still marching, making it difficult for Shiri to hold the holographic image steady.  
"My Lord." Natane said. "We have located the prime objective of this mission." That made Vader stop in his tracks and he looked up to the sky and closed his fists.  
"At last." he said and then looked back at the hologram. "Send the coordinates to my shuttle." Then he marched on to the spaceship.  
The hall behind them was still silent.

WARASOLIS – A ROOF HIGH ABOVE STREET LEVEL

Jedi Knight Maly Jorani had never felt more calm or sure of herself as when she left Master Ben-Kai and the little girl behind her. Vader already knew she was on the planet and would never give up until he had her in his grip. But he did not know about the girl and obviously not about Master Ben-Kai either for that matter. And so Jorani made a decision to assure it remained that way. She would face Vader allright, but she would do it alone, leaving the girl and Ben-Kai behind her, hidden from the dark Lord. Unknown.

To her surprise, Master Ben-Kai had not protested nearly as much as she had thought he would. He said he knew she had already made up her mind and he would not try to stop her. They had gone through some mental exercises together and she had found her inner calm again and no longer thought of the girl as a burden or a baggage she had to carry on her shoulders. That way, he had said, Vader would not feel she was covering up or hiding something from him. At least he should not do so but he knew so little about the dark Lord that he could not be certain of anything.

But nonetheless, she felt more free now than for many a year. Free in a way she had not felt since she took care of the little girl and she knew in the deep of the Force that this was the right path for her to follow. She would draw Vader's attention to her and away from Master Ben-Kai and the girl, making sure they would remain undetected and hidden from the empire. She knew he would train the girl far better than she ever would and thus, the Jedi skills, knowledge and wisdom would live on, hidden in exile until the time came when the Order would once more stand firm and guard peace and justice in the galaxy.

She stood in an open area, rather high above street level. It served as some kind of landing area for smaller cargo vessels to and from the building, but it was deserted now and had been so for some time judging from the look of it. Earlier she had chosen this place carefully and had two alternative escape routes prepared in case she had to get away somewhat hasty. Then it was just a matter of finding a couple of Stormtroopers, jumping in on them and wave her lightsaber around a bit. She had led their hunt to this place, making sure they did not lose her and here they would 'hold' her until _he_ arrived.

So, here she was. Standing close to the edge and feeling the wind in her hair and how it played with her clothes, turning and flapping them.  
Unlike many other planets, Warasolis did not have a climate control system and so nature could roam freely as it wished. Like now.  
Jorani could feel the rain hanging in the air and she drew strength from the pure and untouched power of nature.  
She did not need to wait vary long. Soon enough a Lambda-class imperial shuttle appeared in the sky and landed with hauling repulsorlifts. The entry ramp was lowered and a small party of Stormtroopers disembarked. _So, let's play our little game once more_, she thought.

WARASOLIS - INSIDE A LAMBDA-CLASS SHUTTLE

"Come." Lord Vader said when rising from his seat. "You will watch and learn."  
This time Shiri was up in a flash and followed him. _Learn what?_ she thought but knew better than to say anything.  
When they marched down the entry ramp Vader said to the Troopers standing there "Stay here and do not interfere."  
"Yes sir." the Stormtrooper Commander said and saluted, but Vader had already turned away and marched down to the lonely figure further away.  
"Don´t worry. Stay with us and you´ll be all right." the Commander said to Shiri who shook her head as she said "I´m not worried. It's only a single person against all of us. What could happen?" The Trooper turned his white helmet towards her and said without irony in his synthetic voice "You have never seen a Jedi fight before?" and she shook her head. The Trooper pulled up a pair of binocs from his belt and handed them over to her.  
"Then you sure hit the jackpot Gambling Girl. Watch carefully for this is a rare thing to see these days."

Lord Vader stopped only a fiew steps away from Jorani.  
"So, we meet again, Jedi." he said. "You have eluded me before but this time will be different. This time I will destroy you."  
Jorani nodded to greet him. "I´ve heard that from you before, Sith. And yet, here we are." she paused for a second and added "Again."  
Slowly, almost as if struck by melancholy, he pulled out his lightsaber.  
"Many Jedi have said the same thing to me before you. But I have destroyed them all. Just as i will destroy you. I am more powerful than any Jedi have ever been or ever will be." Jorani took out her own lightsaber and ignited it.  
"Well, we´ll see about that won´t we?" The green light shone bright in the grey light of the cloudy day.

But he surprised her by not activating his own weapon. Instead, he straightened his back and looked up to the dull sky. _He almost looks tired and worn down_, she thought.  
"It doesn´t have to end like this Grasshopper." he said, still looking up.  
The words took her completely by surprise and she lost her concentration, even for only a second, but he did not exploit the weakness in her defences. Instead, he just stood there, unmoving.  
"What did you call me?" she asked to regain her concentration and to win time. Nobody had called her that since her days in the temple, except for her former Master only half a day ago. It was only her closest Jedi friends who even knew of her nick-name, and they were all dead.  
"You don´t have to die here today." he said. "What good would come from death? All you have learned, all the years of training at the temple, all your skills and wisdom. All would have been for nothing and will be lost. Forever."

And then he looked straight at her and held out his hand.  
"Join me." he said. "Join the dark Side and you will become more powerful than you can possible imagine." He closed his fist.  
"I will teach you ways of the Force that few have ever even heard about. Yet, you will learn to control them and become a true Master."  
Jorani stared at the black mask and slowly shook her head.  
"You´re mad." she said. "I will never join the Dark Side."

He looked at her for a short time.  
"Then so be it Jedi. You will die." he finally said and ignited his own sword.


	7. 7-EndGame

LAMBDA-CLASS SHUTTLE

LtC Arien Madaan would never forget these events. Many times he would retell the story in front of amazed and impressed listeners. But he would never begin to tell himself, he had too much respect for that. Instead they would need to pester him about it and only if it came from a senior officer he would agree to speak.

When all the Stormtroopers had left the shuttle and both Vader and that girl again had also walked out, it got pretty lonely back there so Madaan stood up and walked in to the cockpit. There he realized they had not exaggerated the dark Lords actions in the rescue operation. The pilot's seat really was empty. He sat down at Auxiliary Station #1 and looked out the main viewport.  
They had landed on a platform that looked empty and deserted. He could see how the Troopers lined up in front of the shuttle and how Vader told them something and marched on, leaving the Troopers behind, and that girl.  
_Who was she and what the Frell was she doing here?_ He thought. From what he could see, she was just another Tech from the Nemesis?

Just then, he realised the platform was not as empty as it first had seemed. There was a lonely figure standing a bit further away, pretty close to the edge. It was a human, for sure, probably a woman, by judging from the slender figure and the long hair blowing in the wind.  
That was when it struck him; it was a _female_ Jedi they were hunting. Of course! That was her, and now Vader was going to 'take care' of her. Madaan straightened up in the seat and concentrated just a bit harder to see well. There was not many outside the 181st that had seen Lord Vader fight a Jedi and there were quite a number of myths surrounding it all. This was going to be something else to watch.

Vader marched straight up to her and when he got closer she turned around. He towered over her and was at least two heads taller, maybe even three. It looked like they were talking for a short while, Vader slowly took out his weapon and the Jedi did the same and ignited it at once. The same sword of light appeared that he had seen earlier but this one was green rather than the red one Vader had used. Madaan wondered if the colours meant something and if so, what?  
But the dark Lord did not activate his weapon. Instead, he seemed to talk to the Jedi, looking up in the sky and then he stretched out his hand to her, as if he was offering or asking her something.

But whatever it was he had said, it startled the Jedi for a moment and she shook her head. Madaan could not see her face clearly, they were too far away, but the woman was most certainly upset about what had been said. The black figure then lowered his hand and straightened himself up in his full length. _Frell, that man is huge_, Madaan thought. Vader ignited his sword and the red light instantly came out. The Jedi positioned herself with one leg stretched out behind her, spun the sword in her hand once and then held it with her right hand, pointing it backwards-and-up. Her left hand pointed right at her opponent with the palm up. It then hit Madaan that this must be some kind of opening position in her fighting art. Lord Vader slowly took a two hand grip of his weapon and held it with a small angle straight up in front of him.  
Then they just stood there, facing each other, not moving at all. It was like the world was holding its breath.

Even though Madaan was staring at the two figures he did not comprehend how the battle started. It all went to fast. The transition from a static waiting to full movement went so much faster than anything he had ever seen before. The Jedi moved with incredible speed and used an acrobatic style with a lot of vaulting, jumping and movement. It did not look like fighting at all but more as if she was dancing around Vader with choreography like something between liquid water and wind.

If the Jedi was movement then Vader was the total opposite. Unmovement. Like a statue of some ancient warrior God, he stood firm and did not yield an inch, no matter how much the Jedi whirled around him and landed attacks on him from every possible direction.  
At first, Madaan thought the big black figure could not keep up with its so much faster opponent but he could soon see in the way he blocked her attacks and how he placed himself that he had complete control of her patterns and forms. The more he looked at him, the more Madaan realized that Vader moved only as much as was needed to block the Jedi's strikes and then counterattack.

Inside of him, a strange feeling was waking. His earlier respect for the dark Lord had been an equal mix of both fear and pilot skill envy. But now it began to change into...admiration or perhaps even honour. It was hard to describe in words anyway.  
The longer he watched the fight, the more a picture of a symbolic battle emerged. The Jedi was chaos, revolt, terrorism and a hidden agenda of treason. She moved with lightning speed, constantly trying to penetrate the opponent's defences.

He, the Emperors Enforcer, stood firm, almost still by comparison. He was the foundation the empire and the galaxy were standing on right here and now. He gave battle for the good of the many. She was the roaring storm. He was the beacon who led the ships through the storm. She was the false, trying to trick and deceive her way to victory. He was the rock that calm stood fast and saw through every attempt to attack and could parry with simple moves. The empire gave peace and stability to the galaxy and Lord Vader was its sword and shield. And to think that this very sword had once been raised in battle to save him.

Madaan then realized that he himself, as a TIE Fighter pilot, was a part of that sword. In a fighter squadron, in a fighter wing, in the Imperial Navy. He shook his head and felt his own person insignificant compared with the larger and nobler purpose of the empire, of Lord Vader. He was expendable. The empire was eternal. Individualism was weakness. The empire was strength.

WARASOLI - LAMBDA CLASS SHUTTLE

Shiri Tayen watched through the lenses of her borrowed binocs. She had to admire Vader's courage though. He just marched straight up to what must have been that very elusive Jedi they had come for in the first place. She could see the two of them talk for a while. He was much taller than her but his size did not seem to bother her at all. Then she took out her weapon and ignited it, making a blade of bright green light come out. But Vader did not move. His body posture was rather slumped as if he was tired or resignated. He seemed to be studying the sky for a time and then he reached out his hand at the Jedi and offered something, she could clearly see that through the binocs.

But the Jedi was dismayed and shook her head, almost taking a step back. Shiri wondered what kind of horror he had offered but she had little time to think about that for Vader now activated his own weapon. And so they stood for a while. Not moving, facing each other, before they suddenly exploded into action and whirling lightsabres.  
_'Watch and observe'_ he had told her. _Observe what?_ They moved so fast it was almost impossible to see their movements, especially the Jedi.  
But Shiri did see that the one giving most blows was the Jedi and Vader blocked them without difficulties. Or so it seemed from where she was standing.

She was definitively more agile than him and jumped, somersaulted and made sideways movements with an astonishing speed and precision. Vader on the other hand stood almost still, moving just his feet and legs. Shiri thought he looked stiff and clumsy compared to the constantly moving Jedi but in spite of that obvious disadvantage he managed to keep her attacks at bay. Shiri found herself getting almost irritated in his way to move. _If he wasn´t so frellish stiff he could easily..._she stopped herself before she had finished the thought and went cold inside, lowering the binocs. Was that what he had meant? Was she supposed to see what was wrong with his mobility?

She raised her binocs again and observed the battle from a new point of view, now as Crewman Tayen the tech with medical cybernetics as a speciality.  
_It had to be so!_ Why else had he dragged her out to 'Watch and observe'? Then another thought struck her and she lowered her binocs again.  
_It all makes sense now_, she thought. That´s why, that time in the workshop, he had questioned her about her skills and knowledge about cybernetics instead of punish her for breaking several imperial laws. _He had it all already worked out back then. No, that´s impossible, how could he possibly have known..._

She took a deep breath and raised her binocs again. _Frell, he is good_ she thought. When she observed the battle now it was clear what she saw.  
_It´s the suit_, she thought. _The suit is preventing him to move freely, and at the same time the suit is what´s keeping him alive._ _It´s probably both life support system, at least when it comes to breathing, and protective armour._ The shoulders were very motionless, just as the neck. In fact, the entire torso was almost fixed and the head had very little movement as well. To look sideways he almost needed to move his entire body. She could also see now how he had adapted his fighting style to adjust to his handicap, for she now saw it as a disability. He could block the Jedi's attacks with seemingly easy movements, even if they came from behind or from the side and he seemed to be able to 'know' from where they would come and only had to adjust his position to meet the attacker.

To compensate his lack of movement he went on raw power in his own attacks. It looked like he was fighting with a violent aggressiveness and his style reminded more of a slugger compared to the Jedi's acrobatic ballet. But the sheer power of his attacks was not easy for the Jedi to withstand or hold off, Shiri could clearly see that. When she blocked him, the impact was so massive that she sometimes was unable to fulfil her move but was forced to abort a jump, a turn or some other trick.  
He then went hard on her with violent strikes and it was only her speed that let her get clear and could break his attack.

But Shiri thought she could see something else in Vader's ways. It was as if he didn´t fully took advantage of his size and let the Jedi come closer than he should.  
Shiri had seen the same phenomenon when Troopers had been given prostheses that were just a bit longer than what they should have been. It happened sometimes when the medical equipment simply was not there or there was no time for finer personal adjustments. It took only a few millimetres longer legs or arms and their natural movements were disturbed. Vader was very tall, perhaps too tall. It was possible that they had 'made' him much taller than he had been before. She could swear he was not born and raised naturally growing to that height and that made his movements not quite natural for him, even if he had been this tall for years.  
Shiri knew she was out on deep waters now. She knew nothing about Lord Vader before he came aboard the Nemesis just a couple of days ago and how would he react when she reported to him what she had 'observed' and what if...

And then it was all over just as quick as it had begun. The two of them seemed to have avoided colliding and stood turned with their backs at each other. Vader was standing with one leg stretched out behind him in a small angle and his sword was pointing straight forward, away from his opponent. The Jedi had passed him and was facing the other way, one leg bent and her sword was in a 90 degree angle pointing straight up above her head. They stood completely still for a while, almost frozen in time, then the Jedi's legs gave in and she fell to the ground. Shiri almost did not dare to breathe.  
Lord Vader slowly rose, turned and walked over to the body of the fallen Jedi. He turned off his weapon and put it away in his belt again .He stood like that in a time that seemed like an eternity, then he suddenly turned around and marched back to the shuttle.

After only a few steps he reached out with his arm and the Jedi's lightsabre came flying through the air and was caught in his hand.  
The Stormtroopers was standing in attention when he approached but he walked straight up to Shiri and asked "What did you see?"  
Her eyes were caught by a stain of blood on his black clothes. She was getting seriously nervous now. Could she say the truth? That he won the battle but was clumsy as a rancor? _A rancor! Yes, that´s it_. A rancor was slow and clumsy but big and very strong.  
"I saw that your superior strength was victorious over the speed of the Jedi, sir." He watched her in silence.  
"Is that all?" he asked and Shiri could once again feel how he somehow saw right through her.  
"No sir." she answered instinctively and a thousand and one pictures flew around in her head.

But the one who refused to go away was how they had talked in the workshop that time, when they had worked on the prosthesis on her workbench. At that time they both had been technicians and she had found it easy talking to him. And so she decided.  
"It´s your armour, sir. It´s holding you back and is limiting your mobility. Sir." And then it was said. She stood completely still and his breathing device sounded like thunder in her ears. Suddenly he turned away and marched up the ramp and in to the shuttle, closely followed by the Stormtroopers. Alone she remained where she stood and only when the repulsorlifts began to roar she snapped out of it and ran after them. She sat down in her seat, buckled up and tried her best to ignore his overwhelming presence.

THE NEMESIS - CAPTAINS READY ROOM

Captain Natane was sitting in his very large, very comfortable and very expensive office chair and looked out through the large transparisteel viewports where the planet of Warasolis dominated the landscape. Every now and then a flight of TIE Fighters on patrol was seen. If there were little military activities to bee seen the more civilian ships was moving now when Lord Vader had authorized the end of the planetary lockdown. Soon the spaceports would be up in full speed again and Warasolis would be open for business.

Natane could have given the order himself but his by-the-book approach throughout this mission had proven to be successful and he did not intend to lose it all now at the end. There was a very small possibility that the Jedi they had tracked down was not the 'right' Jedi. Well, to be honest, 'track down' was perhaps pushing it a bit too much. Out of nowhere a Stormtrooper patrol had been attacked by a figure waving a lightsabre, and the rest had been just a matter of tracking it. It could have been just a decoy to let the real enemy escape again. But he was not going to let that happen so he had insisted on keeping the planet locked down until further notice. That, combined with the tight grid of patrol patterns in coordination with the Warasoli Security Forces, made it very hard for anything to slip through their net. And nothing had.

He sighed and picked up his cup of caf standing on his desk. The warm liquid made him feel just a little more comfortable and he sure needed to be cheered up right now. Which in fact was very odd since the whole operation had been a smashing success. Instead he ought to be very proud and happy. The massive presence of imperial military might he had ordered, had given just the effect he had hoped for. All possible political opposition had been swept away in wave after wave of cheering for the Emperor and the glory of the empire. TIE Fighters and Stormtroopers had been visible all over the planet and displayed themselves as the friendly and helpful professionals they were, hugging children and pets. Warasolis was now completely pro-empire and would probably stay that way for generations to come.

Reporters from the HoloNet News had already picked up on the story but it was now blown completely out of proportions and was barely recognizable. It was no longer a small local conflict but instead a part of a well-organized, well financed and well-coordinated, anti-stability operation by a secret intergalactic movement, led by hidden Jedi traitors whose goal still was to throw the galaxy into chaos and seize power themselves. Or something like that. Natane had not bothered to follow the HoloNet jibber-jabber that had imperial propaganda written all over it.

Fortunately the news had focused on Lord Vader and the Captain was glad for that. The dark Lord was the empires true hero and all this was his doing. He had led the fighter attack in person, led the Troopers on the ground and even rescued a shot down pilot from a cruel death in the hands of the savage enemy. After that, he had flushed out the old corrupted regime and made a new era possible for the people of Warasolis. As for Grande finale, he had himself faced one of the Jedi leaders and at last destroyed the terrorist traitor. If the reporters wanted details they had to ask the dark Lord himself and no one ever dared to do so.

"Captain." Commander Soraans voice was suddenly heard in Natanes ComLink.  
"Yes." he answered, already knowing the message.  
"Sir, Lord Vader's shuttle is scheduled for departure from hangar bay 12 in 25 minutes."  
"Understood." he answered and the room went quiet again.

As mentioned earlier, Captain Natane should be very happy and he probably would have been if the remainder of this mission had gone down in a different way. During that quick Holo transmission, Lord Vader had said to the new Prime Administrator _"You will report to captain Natane until proper imperial governance can be established..."_.

If there was one thing Natane did not like at all, it was politics and that was the main reason why he did not want a promotion and now he had been caught in the politics of an entire planet. And to make things worse, he was probably stuck here for a long time as some sort of imperial ambassador or something similar. It was a big step up on the ladder of career moves, but he could not care less. It was still horrible boring and too far away from the bridge of a Star Destroyer.  
With a sigh he stood up, looked over his perfect uniform and marched out of the room and made his way to hangar bay 12.

THE NEMESIS - HANGAR BAY 12

When Lord Vader himself came marching through the twin blast doors in one end of the hangar bay the roughly one hundred present members from the crew of the Nemesis snapped to attention. Captain Natane stood in his place and so did everybody else. There was of course an imperial protocol to follow. In just the right moment the Captain took two steps forward and saluted his superior.

"My Lord." he said, nothing more, turned right and followed.  
"Captain." Vader answered and as usual came right to the point.  
"Twice have you refused a promotion. Why?" Now, this question did not come as a complete surprise to Captain Natane and he answered immediately.  
"Captains command Star Destroyers, my lord. Admirals don´t."  
"Admirals command Fleets." Vader answered back  
"True." Natane said, "But many an Admiral can be found far away from the bridge of a battleship, being more of a politician than a soldier."

A strange sound then came from Vader's black helmet and Natane wondered if that could have been a chuckle?  
"So that is the reason for your somewhat sullen face. You fear your mission in Warasolis will turn you into a politician?" Then they arrived at the shuttles entry ramp and they stopped. "Don´t be too concerned with those matters Captain. As soon as your replacement arrive you are to return to your previous location in the Sanraji system and there you will replace the incompetent Admiral Mufid and put an end to that mishandled operation." Then he lifted a finger and pointed it right at him, sending a chill through Natane. "It would be unwise of you to refuse promotion a third time." and after a seconds silence he added "Admiral."  
Natane concentrated his eyes on a single point between the black helmets eye lenses. "As you wish my Lord."

Vader seemed to be satisfied with that and lowered his hand again, putting both of them to rest on his belt.  
"I have decided the faith of crewman Tayen." he continued. "Bring her to me."  
Newly appointed Admiral Natane nodded to Commander Soraan who in turn nodded to Crewman Shiri Tayen, standing in the far end of the row of Troopers and officers. In fact, she was the only non-trooper in the hangar bay under the rank of lieutenant. Not even Ensigns had been allowed.  
Natane felt pity towards the poor woman who now was forced to march between the lines of superior officers. And at the end, the most notorious Commander in the Imperial Forces himself was waiting for her.

Tayen stopped in attention and saluted. "Sir!" she said mechanically and Vader looked down at her for some cruel, long moments.  
"Crewman." he said and it felt like the whole hangar bay held its breath. "I have decided to terminate your service aboard the Nemesis immediately."  
Then he pulled out a small, metallic cylinder from his belt and Natane was not surprised. In fact, it was a miracle that Tayen had been allowed to live this long at all. Most of those who displeased the dark Lord was terminated on the spot, like the late Prime Administrator Chebanis.  
The crewman also seemed to know what came next and her face turned white.  
"Do you have any final words to your Commanding Officer?" Vader asked and Crewman Shiri Tayen looked at the Commander of the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis and said with a broken voice "Thank you for letting me serve, Captain."  
Natane was moved and nodded. "The honour was mine Crewman."

Vader stood silent for some moments and suddenly he said "I am sending you to the imperial naval academy, where you will study advanced cybernetics and robotics, effective immediately." Tayen did not seem to understand what was said and just stared at Lord Vader, then at Admiral Natane and then back at Lord Vader who pointed at her with the weapon and continued "I have high expectations of you. Don´t fail me, _Cadet_."

Finally, Tayen seemed to comprehend the fact that she was not only going to keep her head but she was also going to fill it with the things she wanted most of all and she saluted. "Thank You sir. I will not fail you sir." Natane wondered if this was as close to humour as his superior could get.  
Vader stretched himself up just a bit and said "Good. My shuttles departure for Imperial Center is imminent. Find yourself a seat."  
Tayen saluted again. "Yes sir!" She took a step towards the entry ramp when Vader's voice stopped her.  
"Cadet." Natane took a moment to note that the Crewman's promotion was not a spooner.  
"Yes sir!" Shiri said, turned and snapped to attention. Vader thoughtfully spun the weapon in his hand as if he was contemplating something.  
"The journey will take some time." Then he threw the weapon over to Tayen who caught it using both hands. "Use the time to study it well." he ended.  
Shiri stood with her mouth open and just stared at the lightsabre of the fallen Jedi in her hands and then at Lord Vader.  
"Yes sir!" she said automatically. I will, sir!" Then she turned and disappeared into the shuttle.

"Admiral." Vader continued, now turned to Natane. "In three weeks i expect the Sanraji operation to be solved. Report back to me then for new instructions."  
Natane saluted. "Yes my Lord." Vader then turned turned and marched up the entry ramp which immediately began to close. The repulsorifts roared and the shuttle rose up from the hangar bay floor, floated out through the magnetic field and disappeared down the gigantic main docking bay.

Admiral Natane stayed there for a while even after the rest of the honour guard had left the hangar bay.  
"Admiral?" It was Commander Soraan who stood behind him to his left. Natane did not say anything. "Admiral." Soraan called again.  
"Yes Commander." Natane answered but did not turn his head. He stood almost at the very edge of the docking bay and watched as a flight of TIE Fighters came in from patrol and vanished into another docking bay.  
"Sir." Soraan began, suddenly unsure of herself. "Sir, well, it´s your new rank, sir. Navy protocol. By the book and all? Sir?"  
Finally Natane turned his head with a concerned look. "Yes what about it?"  
"Well, sir." Soraan continued "Would you like to have your things moved to your new quarters?"

Natane looked at her in confusion. "My new quarters? What the..." and then it struck him. The Admiral she was referring to was now him and according to naval regulations a flag officer had the privilege to use the Admirals Suite on any capital ship where such accommodations were installed. He shook his head and held up his hands in an apologetic gesture.  
"Yes, yes Commander, you are quite right. Please, forgive me." he smiled and could see Soraan relax a bit as well. "This whole 'Admiral' thing is going to take me a while to digest. Yes please. Have my things moved to my new quarters." Then he added and held up his right index finger. "As well as my new insignia." Soraan nodded.  
"Yes Admiral. At once." Then she turned around and marched away, leaving a smiling Natane behind.

The former Captain turned again and watched the busy main hangar bay. So he was now an Admiral. The very thing he had tried so hard to avoid these past three or four years. And as expected, his first assignment was a political one. He drew a deep breath and tried to find something else but the deep sense of sorrow he felt inside. There sure was no way out of this one. And Lord Vader had hinted just what might happen if he tried anything. No, this time it was for real. But hey, one good thing was in fact the new quarters. He had not given that any thought at all.

They were really large and luxurious enough to accommodate even a High Admiral of the Sector or a Moff. There was fine furniture, wood paneling, a large briefing area and an even larger dining room. Then the Admiral's stateroom and his office. It was more of a miniature palace than a cabin on a warship and it was there he would meet with the Warasoli Administration, hold his briefings and all such 'Admiral activities'. _Well,_ he thought with a smile, _I can live with that._

And when this mission was over, the real fun would begin. Just thinking about the face of Admiral Mufid when he told him he had been relieved was enough to make him feel a lot better. He would most definitively tell him that face to face. And then he would take the forces on some serious pirate hunting.  
"Well then, dad." he said to himself, remembering his father's words. "Perhaps this Admiral business isn't all too bad after all?"

But there was one thing that he could not quite get out of his mind. This last mission was, well, important. No doubt about that. But no where near as important as to make the Emperor himself order him to go. Why had he done that? It was unheard of!  
Natane could not for his life figure this mystery out. There was for sure something else in movement here. Something that involved him and demanded him to wear the rank of an Admiral. But what did it all mean? For sure, it would all present itself in due time, but still it was annoying not to know what was coming. Because there was something coming, of that he was certain. He knew the Empire used black ops and thinking of it, just about everything involving Lord Vader could be sorted in under that group.  
Somehow all this, the to Warasoli mission, his promotion, the Sanraji operation, Everything felt like some kind of warm up. A test. But a test of what? And why him of all the thousands of imperial officers? Some large scheme of the Emperor had been set in motion and he was a part of it? He could get insane just thinking about it. So he choose not to dwell on it too much and changed his thinking to something more clear and present.

As an Admiral, he had some influence over promoting people. The Nemesis needed a Captain and he knew just who that person would be. Being a female he knew Commander Soraan would have a hard time, but when it came to actual commanding, she was more than ready. And this little time they now had together he would use to support and guide her all he could so that she too would believe she was ready. He turned and strolled in a most unmilitary manner back to the bridge with a warm feeling inside and a big smile on his face.

EPILOGUE

WARASOLI CAPITAL - PARK AREA

Tokasi Ben-Kai closed his eyes and tried to calm his mind which was racing in his head and most of all, in his heart. He must be very careful and maintain the walls hiding his mind. With Vader so close he could not risk letting his presence in the Force be known even for a second. But walls or no walls, he still had a small thread linking him to his former padawan. It was thinner than a human hair and completely transparent, but it was there. And he could feel her stress and tension, knowing she faced Vader in this very moment. The battle was fierce.

And then, suddenly, the link snapped and was no more and the Force screamed in sorrow when the Jedi fell. From all Tokasi had heard of this dark Lord he understood it would take a miracle to defeat him. They both knew it and this would most likely be a one way ticket of a mission, but they did not talk about it. Instead they just shared that knowledge and in a strange way they could collect some strength from it. After all, you never knew what might happen.

But no miracle had presented itself and Jorani had fallen.  
"Farewell Grasshopper. May the Force be with you." he said quietly. He glanced at the little girl running and playing a bit further away on the grass. She had accepted being handed over to him and that the nice lady who had cared for her would not come back. _How easy children adapted_ he thought and took at the same time a deep breath.  
On huge HoloScreens the empires triumph over the terrorists had been pumped out over and over again and soon the traffic and spaceflight would be back to normal again when the spaceports reopened. And soon the finale of the dead Jedi would be released all over the empire.

Tokasi looked at the girl again, who now had fallen over and laid in a pile of laughter.  
"Well then, little one." he said quietly to himself. "I suppose there is no turning back now." Then he shook his head. He really had believed he had left all this behind him. The Temple, the Order and all that. It belonged to his old life which existence had ended when he left the Order…_left the Order_... He knew he had heard that before, somewhere, sometime. He drummed his fingers against his leg for a moment when he remembered his final day in the what was it Master Yoda had said? _'__Leave the order, a Jedi might. But leave the Force, a Jedi can not. Show your destiny, it will, but in more unexpected ways.'_ _You could say that again_. He thought. _More unexpected than this was hard to..._

Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place and he could clearly see how it all fit together. The Order which he had left, Jorani, the little girl. It was one of those moments when you see everything clearly in the Force and there is complete understanding. It all added up. Like when you find that thing you did not even know you had lost and even less, knew you were looking for. _He had known! He had seen this!_

"Yoda!" he said aloud. "You pointy eared little green goblin! You knew this would happen all along!" He remembered how the old Master had chuckled that time and the whole thing suddenly felt comical and Tokasi began to laugh. He laughed loud and from the deep of his heart in a way he had not done in many, many years. He could not stop laughing and had to hold his stomach that began to cramp.

After some time he regained control of himself and the waves of laughter went away. He opened his eyes and the little girl stood there, right in front of him and laughed too. What else had Yoda said? Yes of course, he had laughed when Tokasi had promised never to tell his wife about his true self. He had known that as well. Tokasi started to laugh again ant the little girl joined in. They laughed together and it felt so wonderful and refreshing.  
"You´re funny." she said when they had calmed down a bit and she put her little hand on his cheek.  
"I have fun together with you." he answered and put his huge hand on her tiny cheek.  
"Come little one." he said. "Let´s go home. There is someone i´d like you to meet."

Later in the evening that same day, the girl was asleep in their guest room. Tokasi picked up two glasses and a bottle of light blue Misty Wine from Alderaan and joined his wife on the large balcony. Far, far below there was a street level they could hardly make out and above them to the right, the air traffic lanes were busy again, just as before. "She is adorable." she said while he poured.  
"Yes she is, isn´t she?" he answered and gave her the glass with the sparkling, soft glowing blue liquid. She tasted the wine, nodded and pulled her legs up in the sofa.  
"So, who is she really and where does she come from?" she asked with a curious expression in her eyes.  
"Who she is, i really don´t know, and just as i have told you, her parents are dead. Where she comes from is a bit more...complicated." She smiled at his last words.  
"I didn´t expect anything less." He looked up to the sky for a moment, drew a breath and nodded.  
"Before i start, i want you to know i love you more than you perhaps will ever fully understand." Her smile got wider.  
"Oh? This sounds promising." He could not stop himself from smiling with her but then he collected himself and began.

"There is something about myself that i need to tell you..."


End file.
